Every year at the start of October, all of the coffee shops, chocolatiers, perfumiers, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, and pretty much everyone else gets out their pumpkins and their spices and unleash a flood of harvest/Halloween/Thanksgiving food and fragrance upon the world in the form of pumpkin spiced lattes, hot chocolates, regular chocolates, candles, incense, Jell-O?, Pringles, Pop Tarts, and probably every food product imaginable. This continues until December when they swap out the pumpkin for eggnog and continue until the New Year. These products have varied levels of grossness with a few actually tasting good, though those are the exceptions and not the rules. Into this fray stepped the expert brewers from Rock Island Brewing Company (who’s rocking abilities cannot be overstated) and decided that a glaring hole in this onslaught of pumpkin spiced everything was root beer and they were gonna solve it. I wasn’t sure if I was excited to try it or not. On the one hand, Rock Island Brewing Company, on the other hand pumpkin spiced Jell-O…
The Body is spicy, very spicy. It’s thick and rich as well with some vanilla and pumpkin syrup flavors featuring prominently. The Bite is sharp and intense from all of that spice. I think I’m getting cinnamon, allspice, and clove; maybe others too. It really burns in a way that puts hair on your chest. The Head is okay. It’s medium-short with large bubbles but it sticks around for a bit. The Aftertaste is a honey pumpkin flavor that finishes with clove bits.
So they surely got that spiced part right. That this isn’t awful is a testament to the skill of the brewmasters. Not only that, if you are a spice addicted Bite lover, this could be one of your favorite brews. As for me, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. After much deliberation as I drank my two bottles … I would drink this again. During that “special” time of the year. See how it rates against other root beers.
