Jan 032024
 
Seal of Approval

Last month I was in Atlanta for my final work trip of the year. It’s been a rather busy one with over 100,000 miles of air travel and probably two full months in hotels. But anyhow, I was finally done but had one last DERMS hurrah to be made in a new city so once again ended up dragging my coworkers out for a brew. The Red Hare Brewing and Distilling have a brewery and a still in Atlanta, and one was rather close to my hotel. They don’t really have an “about” section that I could find on their website so I couldn’t tell you much about them other than that. But they also make a root beer and a grapefruit soda and serve them on tap. Their food was all Cuban themed, which is not what I expected from a brewery/still in Georgia, but that’s what it was.

The Body is sweet and rich with a classic, yet complex flavor. There’s a bit of licorice but not much, a bit of vanilla too, but not quite as much as I’d prefer. It is well balanced and quite delicious. The Bite is spicy and fizzy and really delivers. The Head is short and fizzes down too fast but doesn’t completely fizz away, so that you still get foam throughout the whole drinking experience, which is just barely enough Head. The Aftertaste is sweet and mild and pleasant. Not really much of one thing nor another but farewell to the draught you’ve just had, making you want another.

Nice! It’s been awhile since I had a draft brew that made me want seconds, so this was quite welcome. I wish it had a big more Head, but all considered, this is a solid brew I’d recommend to anyone. Their Cuban food was really good too, and the portion size is enormous. So check this place out if you’re in Atlanta.

4 kegs
My Cuban Salmon Bowl with our appetizers and the Root Beer. It was a good meal
The Red Hare Taps, Root Beer on the far right
Nov 012023
 

Back in August I found myself in Albuquerque for the final end of my project. If you’ve been following you’ll know that I’ve found several brews down there but I had hopes I could find another one. I searched for a couple of days, reaching out to every brewery and distillery I could find online, but no luck, so by Wednesday I’d given up on root beer and we decided to hit our favorite pizza join, Restoration Pizza. If you can’t get a new root beer, at least you can get an amazing pizza with green chile. When the waitress asked what we wanted to drink, we asked what kind of root beer they served. She informed us that they make their own. Well that blew me away. How’d I missed that? They’d just started making it a mere two months before. How serendipitous for me. Now I could have my pizza and my root beer too. The question is, how was it?

The Body is weak, not very sweet nor creamy and a little bitter wintergreen. The Bite is mild but not smooth. It could use more spice. The Head is short and foams away by the time they bring it out to you. The Aftertaste is milde and sort of bitter. There’s a little bit of caramel flavor to it though.

Yeah, this is not really a very good root beer at all. Hopefully they are still trying to improve their recipe because it does need some work. Their pizza is still amazing so I definitely recommend visiting, but maybe skip this, unless they make it better.

2 out of 5 root beer kegs
Restoration Pizza
Sep 062023
 

In June I took a lovely long road trip with the family to Idaho. On the way back we went through Idaho falls and I had discovered this place the day before while scoping out if there was anything worth seeing near the supercharger. Snow Eagle Brewing is about a 15 minute walk along the Snake River park from the charger, right across from the scenic Idaho Falls themselves. Their website is very scant on details on their history, but they brew beer and have food and most importantly, brew their own root beer. Their glasses feature a samurai, which is a bit odd for Idaho, but Idaho Falls has a sister city in Japan, Tokai-Mura, so I guess they’re just taking that friendship to a new level.

It has a dark, old fashioned Body with a lot of licorice, some vanilla, and a little wintergreen. There’s too much licorice and it isn’t very sweet. The Bite is mild with a distict lack of spices for a dark, old fashioned brew. The Head is not there, not there at all. No foam that I could see. Very sad. The Aftertaste is licorice with hints of vanilla and a bitter wintergreen finish.

Sadly, this isn’t a particularly great root beer, it has too much licorice and just falls flat (both figuratively and literally) in every other category. It was a beautiful walk to see it, but I think I’d rather not walk near as far and check out some of the sites along the way next time. I have no idea how their food tastes because I didn’t get any, but it probably is decent. So if you find yourself craving a root beer while admiring the Idaho Falls, this will probably leave you disappointed, but it is at least, there.

2.5/5 Root Beer Kegs
The Snow Eagle brew vats
The Snow Eagle Brewing & Grill
The Snow Eagle taps. Root Beer on top, as it should be.