A&W – Page 2 – Eric’s Gourmet Root Beer Blog

A&W Root Beer Lollipops

Aug 142019

A&W Root Beer Lollipop

When I made my pilgrimage to A&W of Lodi , among the various merchandise I found these lollipops for $0.25 a piece. These little unassuming lollis marked simply with Rooty the Root Bear. These have been made for ages, but my brief internet searching couldn’t reveal much about them. Other than lots of people remember them from their childhood. For my part, I’d never seen them before but was overjoyed to find more things to write about on my trip.

It’s got a strong root beer flavor that tastes unsurprisingly like A&W. This is a welcome departure from the standard generic hard candy root beer flavor, though A&W is still pretty middle-of-the-road. It seems to have a little more minty flavor than normal A&W, but maybe that’s just a function of being in hard candy form, what stands out. It’s quite a sticky flavor too, but all in all yummy.

Hey, it tastes like candified A&W. Who would have guessed? I rank these as some of the better root beer hard candies, even though they’ve all been pretty good so far. Worth snagging a few if you can find them.

A&W of Lodi

Root Beer Pilgrimages No Responses »

May 152019

A&W of Lodi

I have some beef with CCR. For while they have some classics, they also wrote the song Lodi, where they maligned the birthplace of arguably the most iconic root beer in existence. I don’t care how bad the rest of the town may be. You can’t speak ill of the place where A&W was born. Yet, despite me often traveling to near Lodi, I’d never gone to the sacred birthplace of this amazing brew. So two weeks ago, when I was in Sacramento for work, I took an evening to drive the hour south to get a draft from its birthplace.

The original stand, built in 1919, is no longer there, sadly. Only a small plaque on the sidewalk marks the spot of the original stand. But nearby is a very old A&W Drive-in that still offers curbside service. It was to this drive in that I went for dinner and a brew. The inside is like a small A&W museum, with a display case full of artifacts and memorabilia, with more along the walls. They sell a lot of cool merch as well to their delicious food, of I bought a shirt and some mugs. Truly Lodi and their A&W Drive-in is a place to where every true root beer devotee must make pilgrimage. And so a new a new category to this blog must be added. Root Beer Pilgrimages. For there are many other such places that need to be visited and blogged about.

The display case of A&W relics

Wall displays are everywhere.

Picture of Roy Allen and old A&Ws

The merchandise display. I may have bought too much.

A tasty meal with delicious root beer!

Jelly Belly A&W Root Beer Jelly Beans

Root Beer Candy No Responses »

Mar 202019

Jelly Belly A&W Root Beer Jelly Beans

Ah Jelly Belly, the Original Gourmet Jelly Bean. At least that’s what they claim and it seems they’ve been around for over 100 years, so … maybe? Despite my absolute love of jelly beans, I’ve never done much research on them. And on that topic, I must say that jelly beans are my favorite candy type (if I had to pick), especially in Easter baskets. Jelly Belly has a host of various flavors and I’ve always been struck by how realistic their flavors taste, especially that juicy pear. But I’m not here to talk about pears, I’m here to talk root beer. They’ve licensed A&W, the most iconic brand, for their root beer flavor which has my hopes high.

They have a very nice root beer flavor, though a little mintier than A&W, and also less vanilla. It’s more like a root beer barrel flavor made into a jelly bean. Somehow, it also seems like they are carbonated, which is ridiculous, because you can make a fizzy jelly bean, but it still feels like that in my mouth.

What dark magic have they employed to make a fizzy jelly bean? They never cease to amaze me. Now, I still hold that this doesn’t really taste much like A&W, yet, more than any candy I’ve ever had, it most closely resembles the root beer drinking experience, because of that arcane wizardry. So I heartily recommend these.

Older Entries Newer Entries