IBC holds a very special place in my root beer reviewing life. It was probably the third that I ever tried, and could be found at the local Walmart in 6-packs of 12 oz bottles, 24-packs of 6 oz bottles, and single 32 oz bottles. My friends and I would snag the latter occasionally after bowling trips and buy the 24 packs for parties sometimes. It was also, during the great sadness in the summer of ’98, that taught me that all gourmet root beers are not created equal. At that time I was drinking several bottles of root beer a day to drown my sorrows. As IBC was much cheaper than the Henry’s I’d usually drink in such occasions, I started getting it as well to relieve the budget. Over the course of several weeks, I could clearly see that there was a difference between the two, and in this case you’d get what you paid for.
It’s an okay root beer by my standards. Good Body and Head but too harsh and too much Bite for my taste. Aftertaste is okay.
First off, I’ll admit that my reviews were significantly less detailed back in the day. I could go back and re-review it being more descriptive, but then I’d have to go back with all of them and that’d be a lot of work and some of them aren’t made anymore so I’m just going to keep it as is. You should feel blessed that you can read reviews from those early days and have a time capsule about how the web once was. Now there are some people who think that this is the greatest root beer ever made. I disagree. But it’s good enough for parties, or for the huge 32 oz bottle occasionally. See how it rates against other root beers.
This one started giving me bad tummy gas after age 40. It got real old fast having to take GasX after drinking one bottle of IBC.