Sep 112013
 

Crater Lake Root Beer Bottle Crater Lake holds a special place in my heart. My family, on the way back from Sacramento, took a detour to visit Crater Lake when I was 17. It was the summer before my senior year. It was beautiful and awe inspiring. I even took some pictures that I used as senior pictures. I’ve longed to return and camp and hike and fish and whatnot. When I first saw this root beer at a local QFC, I was immediately flooded by the good memories. The picture on the label, while nice, doesn’t capture the true majesty of the place. With pure cane sugar to boot, I hoped that this root beer would capture the majesty of the lake and caldera in a brew beyond description. Sadly it was not to be.

The first thing noticeable when drinking this is a very sweet cane sugar flavor. That is about all that this root beer has going for it though. The Body is watery with a sweet sassafras and wintergreen flavor. Not creamy at all. The Bite is pretty weak but still not smooth going down. The Head is pathetic. It is less than a centimeter and fizzes away in seconds leaving the root beer nearly flat. The Aftertaste is sort of sticky sassafras and wintergreen which are two necessary ingredients to root beer but not the only ones.

What a disappointment. It’s all weak and watery, which I suppose brings it close to the authentic lake flavor or something. This reminded me a lot of Flathead Lake Monster Root Beer in that respect. Maybe there’s an agreement that all root beers named after a lake have to be bad and watered down. See how it rates against other root beers.

2 out of 5 root beer kegs