Apr 082015
 

Rat Bastard Root Beer BottleI’m generally a person who spurns vulgarity in all forms and wish the rest of the world would follow suit. I have no misconceptions however that I am, in fact, in the minority in this respect. However, I do feel that there are some, extenuating circumstances when such words may be acceptable. This is one of those times. However, to avoid being too crass, I’ll stick with the expletives printed on the bottle. Oh Rat Bastard, who conceived of you and why? Was it to make sure that one root beer could fail my easiest of metrics, coming in a pretty bottle? Perhaps. And honestly, that is the reason I sought it out. I had reviewed many root beers by that time, the summer after my mission, but I’d never given a zero. Even the vilest of brews still had at least a somewhat of a pretty bottle at that point, but not this. Also it seemed from their tag line, that they didn’t actually want it to taste good. To that end they filled it with all manner of unhallowed ingredients never seen before in a root beer like, jasmine, shiitake, mad dog weed, goldenseal, and the list goes on. Nevertheless, I approached my three bottles with an open mind. Maybe it was all for show and it was another rather generic soda. I was so wrong.

The Body was gross, strange, kinda fruity with a dash of cola? The Head was near nonexistent. There was a harsh Bite, but it was from the many strange herbs and things that should NEVER be put in root beer. It made me stick my tongue out of my mouth repeatedly after each swallow (I guess that my tongue was trying to wipe the flavor off or something.) But then came the Aftertaste which was the same rancid flavor that made me stick my tongue out in the first place.

Oh what utter vileness, what pox upon all that which is called root beer. And I drank three whole bottles of it just to make sure of the review. Truly it is as the bottle boasts, it “tastes like a son of a bitch.” I think that forcing someone to drink that many bottles of this is actually banned by the Geneva Convention. Add the ugly and offensive bottle and I finally got my zero. I don’t think it was quite worth it though. See how it rates against other root beers.

keg0




Oct 282011
 

Another root beer with an exclamatory phrase as the title. While So Duh! Rockin’ Root Beer was at least a play on words and an insinuation of the obvious, as is clearly seen on this bottle the “Dang!” is the centerpiece. Though “dang” can easily be a good interjection, it can also be used quite negatively. The fact that the “That’s Good” is in such small font makes it all the easier to misread the title of this root beer and think that they are aiming more towards the Rat Bastard Root Beer types. And anyways, what’s with this exclamatory naming trend anyhow? What’s next, a Holy Crap! Root Beer? What about a WTF Root Beer? This could easily be taken to the extreme. Why not just name it after the company founder, or place, or your favorite beetle (probably dung beetle would not be a good idea either), or your favorite type of dog (which plenty seem to do)? Well whatever, so how does it stack up?

Dang! It is sealed tighter than most twist caps. That doesn’t really impact its rating at all but I was just throwing it out there. It has a full Body with the standard root beer flavors. There is something slightly out of place with the flavor though, maybe a little too much licorice root or something. It is also a tad creamy. Dang! The Bite is pretty sharp on carbonation and very light on spices, rather the reverse of how it should be. Dang it! It even gave me the hiccups. The Head is pretty weak and fizzes away in seconds. Dang! I like a good Head. The Aftertaste is pretty empty and is just a sugar flavor with the tiniest bit of vanilla that quickly evanesces, dang. There is nothing really special about this brew at all and the Head and the Aftertaste are gravely lacking.

So I find that when drinking this root beer I say “Dang!” a lot. Though much to my chagrin it wasn’t saying “Dang! That’s good,” or anything else that is overly positive. It is drinkable though so I’ll give them that. See how it rates against other root beers.