Draft and Keg Root Beers – Page 2 – Eric’s Gourmet Root Beer Blog

Wienerpeg Brewed Root Beer

Jun 072023

Last month I was up in Winnipeg for the first time in my life. I was there for DERMS, because what else would I be doing? I could just be road tripping, it’s not actually that far from home, but I wasn’t road tripping. Anyways, after doing my DERMS thing my coworker and I walked down to The Forks to see the sites. I love revitalized areas like that, where parks and shops and restaurants are in old brick and stone buildings built in centuries past. One of those restaurants is Wienerpeg, a most fabulously named hot dog place. Everyone who hears the name laughs, and with reason. It is pretty funny. I had made this restaurant our target since I knew that they also made a house brewed root beer, in addition to gourmet hot dogs and poutine. Which would be perfect for International Poutine Day, the day we were there. After checking out the shops we grabbed our order and went to review.

The Body is light and herbal with a prominent honey and sarsaparilla flavor. It’s one of those rare, herb tea root beer profiles which you wouldn’t recognize as root beer if you were blindfolded. The Bite has decent spice with okay carbonation. The Head is medium-short, and fizzes away a little too quickly. The Aftertaste is mild honey and herbs, which is quite pleasant but quite not like archtypical root beer.

An herb tea style root beer. I haven’t had one of those in awhile. I’m still not convinced that this a valid form of root beer, just too far outside of what you’d expect. I dare anyone to take a blind taste and say that such a brew is in fact a root beer, or what they expect a root beer to taste like. Anyways, it is a bit tasty and pleasant to drink and goes well with the hotdogs. I had their signature Wienerpeg one with some pulled pork poutine, that was quite excellent. This place is definitely worth a visit for the food.

My Wienerpeg hotdog, with cheese curds, dill and grilled onions, and a pulled pork poutine

Clouds Brewing Root Beer

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May 032023

The second root beer from my Raleigh trip. I honestly never know when or if I’ll be back to visit that customer so I had to try and get all of the root beers I could. Clouds Brewing was started in 2015 with the original intent of “German inspired, American made” beer. They also were wise enough to have an American inspired, American made root beer, which puts them head and shoulders above most other breweries. They’ve got a brew house and a tap room, but only the tap room serves the root beer on draft, while the brewhouse with the full restaurant serves it in cans *shudder* so I couldn’t eat my dinner there that night, but since the tap room was a short five minutes from my hotel, I could easily drop by before dinner.

The Body is sweet and complex with wintergreen and vanilla, some licorice and other spices with an old fashioned flavor profile. There’s really a lot going on in there and it blends well. There’s some solid Bite from said spices but it is still rather smooth. The Head is medium and lasts awhile. The Aftertaste is wintergreen that turns bitter but then finishes with a buttery caramely vanilla-ish flavor that is really quite nice.

This is truly a sipping brew, if you drink it fast the bitterness becomes overpowering but if you take small sips that final, lovely flavor can shine. I feel a Seal of Approval brew needs to be one that you can both sip and chug, which this is sadly not. But it is quite a fine brew to sit back and relax with if you want to visit the tap room for awhile.

**The Clouds Brewing brew vats and the taps. I always love a tap room with the stuff just out like that.**

Raleigh Brewing Root Beer

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Apr 052023

Back in early November I was in Raleigh visiting the local utility for DERMS reasons, obviously, and making the most of my evenings by finding fine dining and brews. I’d been ro Raleigh nearly 10 years before trying to be a professor at NC State but that didn’t work out. For some reason I also utterly failed to get any amazing and noteworthy food or root beer then, so this was basically like being in Raleigh for the very first time. On my bucket list were shrimp and grits, chicken and waffles, BBQ, and two breweries. Raleigh Brewing being the first of those two. Raleigh Brewing was opened in 2013 by the first woman to own a brewery in North Carolina. In addition to the brewery they have a sister store attached to the tab room, Atlantic Brew Supply, which is a home brew supply shop. They have 32 taps, including their root beer, but only food trucks so I grabbed this brew before dinner.

The Body is mild and watery and not very sweet. The flavors are subtle, I get a bit of anise and something herbal. It really is rather weak. The Bite has a hint of spice and then pretty mild. Also mild in carbonation. The Head is short and goes away quickly. The Aftertaste is, you guessed it, faint, and gone quickly. Was there herbal notes in there? Who could say.

This is not really unpleasant but it’s utterly disappointing. It just falls flat in basically every category. Maybe I just got a bad batch or maybe they like it this way, but I sure don’t. Was glad I got to go somewhere else for dinner, where I had the most amazing chicken and waffles ever, but that’s another non-root beer story for another day. Stay away from this place unless you really must have a bad root beer.

**The Raleigh Brewing taps (some of them). Root Beer is the far left**

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