Eric’s Gourmet Root Beer Blog – The blog of the gourmet root beer site.

Hank’s Gourmet Root Beer

Nov 062024

I made a mistake 13 years ago. Back when I held my Ultimate Root Beer Showdown I said that Hank’s seemed better than I remembered. At that time I knew the bottle had changed, but I didn’t actually realized that they’d made a subtle change to both their recipe (substituting cane sugar for high fructose corn syrup) and their name (substituting Gourmet for Premium). What I thought was the Hank’s I’d reviewed in 1998 was actually a technically new root beer. I’d like to think that after seeing such a high ranking at gourmetrootbeer.com they strove to make their premium root beer even better, worthy of truly being, “Gourmet”, and renamed the brew once they’d achieved it. Regardless, change their recipe and name they did, and thus a new root beer I need to review. Since I’ve been drinking Hank’s continuously since then, the review itself comes as no surprise but I shall write it as if it did.

Sweet mother of root beer! This has an amazing Body. How root beer should taste. It’s sweet and rooty and creamy and spicy. It’s perfectly proportioned with nothing lacking. The Bite is solid but not overbearing. The Head is tall and foamy as a root beer should be. The Aftertaste is luscious vanilla that lasts the perfect amount of time.

I really, truly, love this stuff. It is perhaps as close to perfection as we can come in this imperfect world. See how it rates against other root beers.

Rattlesnake Mountain Brewing Company Root Beer

Draft and Keg Root Beers No Responses »

Oct 022024

Back in July I went out to the TriCities for a work conference. It felt good to be back in my home turf, having grown up in that area. Since it had been a few years since I’d been there, I figured it was worth trying for more root beer. I found, though not through their official site, that Rattlesnake Mountain Brewing Company made their own root beer, but tries to keep it a secret, evidently. I only learned of its existence through a review that someone left about them. I called and they confirmed it existed, but when I finally got there, it wasn’t even on the menu. I felt like part of an exclusive club at that point, you gotta know about it or they won’t even tell you. Another interesting thing is that, if you know the local geography, you’ll immediately notice that this brewery is much much closer to Badger Mountain than Rattlesnake Mountain, but there already is a Badger Mountain Brewing though that isn’t anywhere near this Badger Mountain, so maybe there’s more than one Badger Mountain in the same state? I think I’ve really strayed from my root beer story. So anyways, I showed up with a crew in tow of coworkers and customers and we sat down and they informed us trivia was going to start and if we wanted to play. So we were all like, “sure” then they wanted a name for our team, my coworkers looked to me but I replied, “I don’t know, I’m in a root beer mindset.” And thus team Root Beer Mindset was born. So while I got to reviewing this brew, I would interject answers to the surprise of the team “Anne of Green Gables”, “Baltic Sea”, “Weird Al Yankovic”, “Bushido code”, etc.

The Body is sweet and complex with a sassafras and licorice flavor with a little vanilla and wintergreen coming through. The licorice is very tame, just enough to add but not anywhere near overpowering. The Bite is nice and spicy and prickly but it still is rather smooth on the finish. The Head is non-existent. This is very sad. The Aftertaste has a caramelized sugar with a bit of licorice.

It’s a good complex flavor, but that utter lack of head really ruins it, which is sad. It was still quite nice and went really well with the apps we got. We also managed to win trivia, surprisingly, making this for quite the night for all involved.

**The Rattlesnake Mountain Brewing Company**

**Some bacon wrapped jalapeno popper things that were amazing.**

Bishop’s Beer Root Beer

Draft and Keg Root Beers No Responses »

Sep 042024

The second brew on my roadtrip from Idaho back to Minnesota. This one come from the Bacon & Bleu Family Restaurant in Idaho Falls. I’d found out about it on the way there but didn’t have time to visit it till the way back. The root beer itself is named after the founder’s grandfather, Daune Bishop, who would make homemade root beer. In true old homemade fashion, the Bishop’s Beer is yeast carbonated, something that both intrigues and scares me whenever I hear it. Despite already having tried a root beer that day, I was determined to try another, because it seemed too unique to pass up. They also sell country fried bacon but more on that.

The Body is sweet with a homemade sarsaparilla and sassafras flavor that’s yeasty but not overpowering. Other than the yeast, the rest of the flavors are more of just a core root beer flavor, without a lot of garnishes but it works well. The Bite is mild, there’s not a lot of carbonation nor spice, but it’s nice and smooth. The Head is medium height if you ask for it like that. It fizzes down pretty quickly though. The Aftertaste is sweet, sort of a sarsaparilla with yeast that’s suprisingly refreshing.

This is quite good. Surprisingly so for yeast carbonated. Dare I say, it’s the best yeast brew I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing (most were anything but a pleasure). Not quite Seal of Approval, but still good. I love the fact that the restaurant has a dedicated root beer tap and kegerator just on its own where they get the root beer orders. Not even remotely close to any other drink filling. Just really highlights that brew. We ordered that country fried bacon and fried pickle chips as chasers and wow! I didn’t know I needed deep fried bacon and country gravy in my life, until I had. It may be the new perfect pairing with a frosty mug of brew. If a good yeast root beer isn’t enough to get you to Bacon & Bleu, add some delicous country fried bacon and you realize that this is a must vist.

**Country fried bacon and fried pickle chips. Great to share with the family over a frosty mug of brew.**

**Bacon** **and Bleu Restaurant. Note the root beer signage.**

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