Interesting! I have had St. Clair's and would put it in the middle as a very good butter but not one that I'd go to the ends of the earth for. I like Clover a lot but my wife finds it, like Kerrygold, verging on fishy. My favorite butter of all time is from another Northern California restaurant, Manresa. Vividly yellow, clearly unpasteurized, aggressively grassy. The downside of course is that unpasteurized butter is not the safest food and probably has a shelf life of two days, so it's not like a commercial butter, no matter how perfectly produced, could taste the same.
I'm not sure these sorts of head-to-head taste tests reveal that much about how enjoyable a butter is at table. One of my favorite seafood restaurants is a small chain in Paris, Le Bar à Huitres (pretty funny to me that it's literally Oyster Bar, kind of like a steakhouse called "Steakhouse"). They have these absurd seafood platters laden with delicacies that I had never heard of like sea snails, but the sides are really interesting. Mignonette and lemon (obligatory), but also a tiny can of rillettes (?), a piece of baguette, and Bordier butter. The butter was really wasted in the context of the seafood, in my opinion.
If you like butter, one I see pretty often is just labeled "German butter". Lightly cultured and salted, very tasty. I wish I could get beurre d'Isigny on the regular, but I'm not making a special trip into the city.
I've never associated fishy with kerrygold, but after reading this thread a bit, I think I may have thrown out clover butter mistakingly assuming it had gone rancid. It either picks up fishy flavors very easily or develops them quickly in the fridge while other butters are just fine.
I'm not sure these sorts of head-to-head taste tests reveal that much about how enjoyable a butter is at table. One of my favorite seafood restaurants is a small chain in Paris, Le Bar à Huitres (pretty funny to me that it's literally Oyster Bar, kind of like a steakhouse called "Steakhouse"). They have these absurd seafood platters laden with delicacies that I had never heard of like sea snails, but the sides are really interesting. Mignonette and lemon (obligatory), but also a tiny can of rillettes (?), a piece of baguette, and Bordier butter. The butter was really wasted in the context of the seafood, in my opinion.
If you like butter, one I see pretty often is just labeled "German butter". Lightly cultured and salted, very tasty. I wish I could get beurre d'Isigny on the regular, but I'm not making a special trip into the city.