Crim City is a rough place. Where kingpins and their henchmen pull major heists, brawlers fill the alleys, and renegades cause all sorts of damage while ensuring someone else gets the blame. The Crim City Police Department always has their hands full but they never seem to make any progress at all. This Gotham of a town is ironically the creation of Canadians, who have grown tired of all the politeness, moose, and maple syrup that adorns their cities. They have also grown tired of large scale commercial sodas, which are so bland and artificial, and thus have launched a rough and tough, all natural, exciting soda company to combat the blasé flavors and branding of the commercial establishment. Their root beer is the renegade of the group. They were kind enough to let me order some direct, though shipping from Canuckistan (I’m not the only one who calls Canada that right?) is rather steep. They also make energy drinks under the brand of Beaver Buzz with the tagline “Dam Good” and included one for me because that’s the sort of nice guys they are.
The Body is nice and sweet with a light flavor profile. There’s some caramel and vanilla notes with spices. The Bite is harsh but has some nice spice to it. The Head is medium height and duration. The Aftertaste is the faintest caramel traces that are gone quickly.
This is nice. It’s a light brew, but the flavors are all good. I’d prefer it to be stronger, but maybe that’s the renegade’s way, cooler than strong. It’s not quite Seal material, but it’s better than average. See how it rates against other root beers.
Another flavored brew. This time it’s a birch root beer. Not a birch beer. Technically this says “Birch Rootbeer”, which, if you are getting deep into the semantics of things you’d try and say isn’t really a root beer, but luckily the proper semantic definition has been established by the Standards Committee of the International Association of Gourmet Root Beer (IAGRB). It is in Standard NC 023.2-2007. I’ll only summarize it, because it costs a lot of money to buy those standards. Basically a root beer is defined as combinations of ‘root’ and ‘beer’, such as root beer, rootbeer, root bear, root beir, as well as translations such as cerveja de rais, cerveza de raiz, bière de racine, racinette, etc. Additionally, other flavors that proceed the term root beer do not disqualify it from being a root beer while flavors afterwards may do so, such as root beer and chocolate or root beer float. Got it? Good. Now on to Hummingbird Hill. I didn’t like their 
One week into my new job and I was already flying on business into the Mystic Land of the North. Talk about hitting the ground running. This particular time I was off to Montreal. I didn’t have a lot of spare time, and there weren’t any breweries that had any racinette. I stumbled across some hard root beer in a convenience store which was just simply infuriating. Then I found Henri Sodas on Facebook. Henri makes several flavors of all natural, artisan sodas, brewed in small batches in the Montreal area. I reached out them on Facebook and told them where I was staying and asked if there was a store nearby that sold their brew. I was in luck, and they quickly replied that Mandy’s Salads, a quick walk from my hotel, carried their brew. I was able to get some that very next night after dinner. There were only 6 bottles in stock and I bought them all. Thankfully I got free checked bags so I could transport it home for free. The taped seal on the bottle is a nice unique touch. Makes the bottles feel slightly more premium.
