This was the last root beer that I reviewed before heading to Utah to do my undergrad at BYU. Since I didn’t have a digital camera at the time, I just put up a stock photo of this that I found online (I apologize if I infringed on anyone’s copyright, I’ve taken down the offending image). It showed this having a silver foil wrapping around the cap of the bottle. The ones I had, however, didn’t come with any fancy silver foil on the caps. My bottle, as you can see, is very plain. As it hailed from Chicago, it has the Sears tower in the background. I have no idea what the building in the foreground is. Maybe some church, maybe their bottling plant, maybe some random building in Chicago that they just really like, or maybe, the location of the hidden scrolls that will give the directions to unlocking the secret to the best root beer in the world, of which this is only a tribute. This was made by the Clover Club Bottling plant as their own house root beer and has since been discontinued. I didn’t know it wouldn’t be around now when I bought it then. I was very lucky.
This has a sweet rich Body with a zippy little Bite. The Aftertaste is some what fruity but not too fruity to be displeasing. The Head however is completely terrible. There is no head at all and it is practically flat.
Another decent brew ruined by the Head. And also, the fruitiness. Yeah, it was an alright brew that clearly wasn’t as good as the Dog n Suds that they also bottle, so I’m not surprised they axed it. See how it rates against other root beers.
One from my BYU days, I ordered it in a variety pack online and when I got it one of my friends at the time told me how much she loved Dog n Suds. I didn’t actually ask for more info so I was completely lost as to what they were going for in their name. There’s a dog holding a hotdog and a mug of root beer so I assumed that the name came from a dog with a sudsy root beer, or maybe one is supposed to order a hotdog and the root beer supplies the suds. At the time it was an enigma but one I didn’t care to expend too much effort to solve (this was back before Percival C. McGillicuddy was on the scene). Finally someone emailed me at explained that it was a hotdog/root beer stand chain, hence ‘dog’ n ‘suds’. That would explain the whole “Drive In Style” on their bottle. I’ll just leave the original ratings table review the same so you can see the whole process of it back then.
My first blog post! I’ve been running the site for over 10 years and a lot has changed in the web since then and so I’m adding the blog to get more with the times. I’ll write a “long format” blog post review of every root beer I taste test from now on and as time permits, go back and write up blog posts of the old “short format” reviews. Other blog posts will be added as seems appropriate. So, another root beer with a dog on the bottle. What is it with dogs on the bottles of root beer, I mean; mug, dog n suds, sea dog, bull dog, etc. Everybody (and their dog it seems) wants to put a dog on their root beer bottle. But beyond my canine quipping, it is a pretty sweet bottle. It’s got a fancy label and it doesn’t have a twist cap. I like it when they do that. I had to use a bottle opener like with Mason’s and Mendecino Taubold’s Private Reserve. It’s more old fashion (maybe its cheaper too?) So how did this old doggy root beer stack up?