I got this awhile back as part of my massive purchase in the Great Root Beer Binge (about 80 bottles, 40 varieties of root beer, a new review every other day, and a bottle of Henry’s before every review) when I was revamping the site, but never wrote a blog post on it. What jumped out at me about this was that it seems very classy and professional, especially the label. I mean, the cursive fonts the background picture of the brewery building that’s almost like a water mark, the way the brewery name is presented, it’s like a certificate almost. Adding to the coolness is that this comes from an actual brewery and not just a soda company. Lion Brewery also used to own the Olde Philadelphia soda line, but a little over two years ago it was sold to new owners who changed the recipes. Old Philadelphia is still bottled by the Lion Brewery though, and is listed on their website. It took several emails back and forth between the two groups to get it all straightened out, especially since the Lion Brewery calls the Old Philadelphia William Penn Root Beer instead of Old Fashioned Root Beer. Since the sale and reformulation, William Penn Root Beer has ceased to exist. Lion Brewery Root Beer on the other hand, is still its original recipe, made and bottled by the brewers themselves.
It has hearty, full Body to it. It has a very dark and rooty sassafras flavor. It isn’t very creamy sadly. The Bite is a too little harsh for my tastes. The Head is on the weak side. It is mildly frothy and thus fizzes down quickly, but doesn’t disappear. The Aftertaste is a sweet sassafras flavor with slight accents of wintergreen that lingers awhile.
This is definitely a quality, solid brew, yet, not quite my style. I prefer my root beers a bit creamier, smoother, and with a frothier Head. Therefore, this is a prime root beer for a gourmet root beer float. One scoop of vanilla ice cream will fix all of its shortcomings. See how it rates against other root beers.
The first question that I had was why did they call it Old Fashioned root beer and not Olde Fashioned? I mean it is Olde Philadelphia. Perhaps old fashioned root beer isn’t old enough for the extra ‘e’. The second question I had was “why is the label almost pealing off?” and crooked for that matter. A crappy crooked label doesn’t help convince people you have a “gourmet soda.” But then again, this is from Philly, the home of Hank’s. Ever since Hank’s, I’ve had a soft spot for Philly. So perhaps this root beer from the same city got some of that awesomeness that Hank’s exudes.
