This is the first and only root beer that I’ve had so far from Hawaii. That begs the question of whether I’ve had a root beer from every state. Without looking back at the 200 odd brews I’ve tried at this point I can definitively say ‘no’. That’s because I have as of yet utterly failed to procure anything from Alaska. It’s up there, but I can’t get it. Someday … But anyhow, Waialua, since it’s from Hawaii, it has a hula girl on the label. Good. If it didn’t there would be problems for sure. There’s some other stuff there like “finest Hawaiian quality” and some squiggly lines at the bottom which may or may not be Japanese or some other Asian script, but who cares, there’s a hula girl and that is all that needs to be looked at. A curious thing about this is the sweetener used. They use “cane sugar” and “Maui natural white cane sugar”, the difference between those two is difficult to grasp. Since Hawaii is a sugar exporting state, I doubt they’re bringing in Brazilian sugar for this brew. So why not just call it all Hawaiian cane sugar? We may never know.
The Body was weak and not very flavorful, you could taste the right stuff but you had to look very hard to find it. The Bite was nothing special. The Head was large but not frothy at all. It fizzed away in several seconds. The Aftertaste was a very weak vanilla flavor that was almost instantly gone after it appeared.
So, way watered down. Maybe if they put two to three times the flavor it would be something worth talking about, however, as it was, when I finished drinking it, I looked down at my empty glass asking myself, what did I just drink? If it hadn’t said root beer on the label, I wouldn’t have known. See how it rates against other root beers.
This is probably the first “Old Style” root beer I’ve had. It reminds me of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Movie where the Shredder is all “You fight well, in the old style …” So clearly Mr. Stephans’ recipe has been handed down to him from a family of ninja monks who practices the “Old Style”. The same can be said of his 
It took me a long time to get a hold of this. I had a friend who was doing an MBA at Cornell and she kept saying she get me some and then she graduated and moved and I still didn’t have my root beer. Eventually someone else contacted me and offered a trade and I finally was able to have this much sought after brew. The label is brown and orange to give a sort of wooden keg feel to it. Then there’s some sort of ink blot test in the center that I’m gonna say is an old woman’s face. She’s got a big scar under her right eye. I’m not sure why they put that there. Maybe you only see the old woman if you’re crazy and other people see something else. I’ll skip the psychiatrist though, I’m busy drinking root beer.
