This root beer comes from the Yellowstone Valley Brewing Company in Montana. For those of you who don’t know, a Woolly Bugger is a fly used in fly fishing. It’s a wet fly, which means it goes under the water as opposed to a dry fly which floats on top. I did try my hand at fly fishing for a few years so I’ve used one of these. Now the name is slightly different but based on the picture you can tell that’s what they’re going for. This makes it the second fishing themed root beer I’ve seen. There’s also some cow girl riding the fly with the caption “Wild Fly Rider” I think this is the first root beer to feature a busty cow girl on it that I’ve had. There are several other curiosities about their label. It says Grand Cru, which is a wine classification for superior quality. Then on the side of the label it reads “Guaranteed to Wooley Your Bugger and Then Some. The Black Elixir of the Yellowstone. Hardy Drink For Hardy Souls! THE Rocky Mountain Root Beer.” It’s like they couldn’t decide one what they wanted their tagline to be so they went with all of the suggestions. I have no idea what the first one is even supposed to mean. The last one will probably raise objections from the Rocky Mountain Root Beer people. The third line is, well, okay, whatever, and the second one makes me think it’s going to have a lot of licorice in it.
The Body is minty and I want to say birchy. There’s a little anise as well. There’s a strong wintergreen Bite but that’s it. The Head is short yet foamy. The Aftertaste is wintergreen and birch that’s a tad bitter.
This tastes more like a birch beer to me, though I can’t claim to be an expert on them, I’ve had several and they remind me of this. It also tastes similar to Spring Lake Root Beer with their birch beer extracts. But unlike some of the birch root beers, this one really lacks the vanilla, the sassafras, and the spice flavors. It still passes as a decent root beer though. See how it rates against other root beers.
