Dec 092015
 

Old No. 3 Root Beer BottleSeal of Approval What’s with all the old number root beers lately. I mean, two in two weeks? What’s that anthony thinking, sending me only old number stuff. I want some fresh root beer. This is made by the Milwaukee Brewing Company. So proud are they of their concoction, that no mention of it can be found on their website at all, even using the search. The only way I know its the same place is because the url on the bottle, which doesn’t actually work. But the MKE logo is the same. Yup. This root beer is clearly one of their favorite products. It’s also a tribute to firemen. It’s hard to tell on the label, because it wraps around, but there’s a fireman on the left side spraying water on the fire in the middle. The text on the right say’s how it’s a tribute to firemen everywhere. Kind of makes me wonder, if they like firemen so much, why don’t they tell anyone about the root beer they made for them? There also is no explanation of why it’s called Old No. 3.

The Body is very sweet and rich and creamy. There’s lots of vanilla and a sort of caramel flavor. The Bite is very nice. There is just enough spice burn to feel after a few seconds but not too much. The carbonation level is also perfect. The Head is good; medium height and lingers throughout the entire drinking experience. The Aftertaste is rich vanilla with some spiced caramel.

Delicious, delicious. This has pretty much everything I like in a root beer. So why all of the hush hush? A brew like this is one that you shout about from the roof tops for all the world to know about. I’ll have to let them know how good it is. Maybe they don’t know. See how it rates against other root beers.

4 kegs




Aug 082012
 

Firemans Brew is the creation of some fireman in LA who thought it would be cool to both make a whole line of refreshing micro-brewed drinks, made by firemen for firemen, and confuse spell checkers by not putting an apostrophe in between the ‘n’ and the ‘s’ in their company name, even though it is clearly a possessive. Well, actually I don’t know if the second was truly one of their stated objectives but they accomplished it nonetheless. Maybe they were trying to say firemen in a cooler way, like firemans, but you’d have to be an L.A. fireman to get the joke, I’m not sure. I do love the idea of a fireman root beer, because you know, things are pretty tough for firemen and they run into burning buildings and save people so they deserve a good brew to relax into after saving little Timmy and then getting the cat out of the tree and whatnot. It’s got a pretty classy look too, probably to impress the ladies, since they always go for a guy in uniform, or a root beer for that matter. I love the line “Extinguish your thirst” even if it is entirely expected in this case.

The Body is dark and a tad creamy from what seems a hint of vanilla. There seems to be some anise and wintergreen. It tastes rather generic though; I swear I’ve had numerous root beers with this same flavor repertoire. It is toned down from some of those stouts so it isn’t too bad. The Bite is decent, and the overall brew is pretty smooth. The Head is tall and pretty frothy. It fizzes down a bit quicker than I prefer but it is still good. The Aftertaste is a dark anise flavor with accents of vanilla and wintergreen.

So it seems that these firemans like stout anise-y brews. I can’t say that they’re my favorites but this one isn’t bad. I really struggled about where to rate this one. It’s a decent brew but doesn’t seem to have any really distinguishing qualities about it to boost it over the top. The nice Head though was eventually enough to push it above a 3 to a low 3.5. See how it rates against other root beers.