This last week I had the immense pleasure of traveling to Dhahran in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to do more electric car academic things, presentations and a thesis defense. I of course was on the look out for the greatest soft drink the world has and ever will known/know. I was simultaneously hopeful and worried. Hopeful, because all alcoholic beverages are banned and so many beer companies make 0.0% malt beverage to sell there, and worried because none of my Saudi friends have ever liked root beer. And also because the internet filter put on by the government blocked my site. I assume it is due to the “beer” in the title of Eric’s Gourmet Root Beer Site and all of the talking of root “beer”. I did send an unblock request explaining the misconception so hopefully it will be taken care of soon. Either way, it didn’t bode well for root beer finding.
I searched in every grocery store and cafe I encountered, and while I did find many new and strange sodas and malt beverages, root beer eluded me until the second to last day. I had gone to Safeway in search of a post card (also something nigh impossible to find). In the soda section I saw cans of imported A&W, my heart was swollen with joy, but not as much as when I turned the corner and saw another display with bottles of IBC. A drinkable gourmet root beer in a regular grocery store. A most triumphant win for the good people of the Kingdom this is. With any luck it will catch on and they’ll start making their own version for me to review. Until then, all root beer lovers heading out that way for extended periods of time can rest easy in the knowledge that some gourmet brew is awaiting.
Another one from 
The first root beer that I encountered from Old Town Root Beer Company is ironically the last I end up writing about. I know, I know, I wish everything were chronological too but that’s what happens when you’ve been reviewing root beers for longer than blogs have existed. Give me another year or so and all the old ones should be worked through. Anyways, the fact that we have three different root beers from the same company makes them one of the coolest companies in the world. Then they go and ruin it for themselves by putting their url on the label of this root beer and then not even bothering to pay the $10/year fee to keep said website so it doesn’t work when you visit it. I mean, seriously, it’s not that expensive. Their label is also really busy with small text and not near enough emphasis on their logo. They just have so much to tell us and not hardly enough room. Some of that text is to claim to be a “premium micro-brewed root beer” made with only the “Finest” ingredients, which evidently includes sodium benzoate and “other Flavors.”
