My first car was a little Ford Ranger without AC. This matters because when I moved from Eastern WA to Provo, UT for school in late August some years ago, driving in that heat for 12 hours presented a bit of a problem. My solution was to drive at night. So I left at 8 pm and arrived at 8 am. Along the way, I stopped for gas in Baker City Oregon and, as I am wont to do, I checked for any new root beers. I found Tommyknocker and bought some bottles to review at my destination. I absolutely loved it. I went back to visit my parents for Christmas and made sure to stop at the same gas station and got more. They thought it was amazing too. This was once the 3rd highest rated root beer for me. Then one day, I found it in a store in Provo. I bought a six pack and happily told a friend and we each had a bottle. She didn’t think it was that good, and I thought it was off a bit as well. I checked the label. They’d changed it! They took away all of the premium ingredients and replaced them with artificial and generic ones. I was crushed, but dutifully got to reviewing it again.
The Body is mapley, but kind of empty and not overly sweet. I do love that maple flavor though. There is not really much Bite at all, and, though I do like it smooth I like a little more. The Head is frothy but nothing too spectacular. I would class it as Ok. The Aftertaste is of maple but it doesn’t linger.
This brew gives a good first impression but falls short afterwards. Compared to it’s original hearty, sticky, super mapely former self, this was simply an empty shell. What a disappointment. I angrily emailed the company to castigate them for their foolishness. They replied that their recipe hadn’t changed at all. I retorted that I’d saved bottles from both reviews and the original, good one, not only had different ingredients listed but different nutritional values. They ceased their correspondence. Losers. Ruin a near perfect brew and try to lie about it. Oh well. When taken on it’s own the new one isn’t actually bad, just nowhere near it’s former glory. See how it rates against other root beers.
