Seal of Approval – Eric’s Gourmet Root Beer Blog

Hank’s Gourmet Root Beer

Nov 062024

I made a mistake 13 years ago. Back when I held my Ultimate Root Beer Showdown I said that Hank’s seemed better than I remembered. At that time I knew the bottle had changed, but I didn’t actually realized that they’d made a subtle change to both their recipe (substituting cane sugar for high fructose corn syrup) and their name (substituting Gourmet for Premium). What I thought was the Hank’s I’d reviewed in 1998 was actually a technically new root beer. I’d like to think that after seeing such a high ranking at gourmetrootbeer.com they strove to make their premium root beer even better, worthy of truly being, “Gourmet”, and renamed the brew once they’d achieved it. Regardless, change their recipe and name they did, and thus a new root beer I need to review. Since I’ve been drinking Hank’s continuously since then, the review itself comes as no surprise but I shall write it as if it did.

Sweet mother of root beer! This has an amazing Body. How root beer should taste. It’s sweet and rooty and creamy and spicy. It’s perfectly proportioned with nothing lacking. The Bite is solid but not overbearing. The Head is tall and foamy as a root beer should be. The Aftertaste is luscious vanilla that lasts the perfect amount of time.

I really, truly, love this stuff. It is perhaps as close to perfection as we can come in this imperfect world. See how it rates against other root beers.

Henry Weinhard’s Gourmet Soda Root Beer

Bottled Root Beers No Responses »

Jun 052024

Henry Weinhard’s was for ages my root beer standard while I was living on the West Coast. They had tweaked their recipe several times over the decades but it always still tasted the same. The name had never changed so it always left me with a bit of a conundrum as to whether or not I should rereview it. In the years since I’ve moved to Minnesota, they finally added a “Gourmet Soda” tag to their name so I can safely differentiate it from the Henry’s that’s gone before. While I wish they had never changed their recipe, it does give me more things to review and more bottles to add to the collection. My biggest fear was they somehow ruined the brew that for ages was the gold standard of root beer for me.

The Body is sweet and creamy with rich vanilla and a hint of honey flavor. It is nearly perfectly balanced, tasting just like you expect a creamy root beer to taste. The Bite is smoooth, and yet there is a bit of spice and carbonation tingle. The Head is amazing, a standard to which all other root beers must be held. Tall, foamy, lasts forever, pour carefully lest you overflow your mug. The Aftertaste is a nice caramely vanilla that lasts the perfect amount of time.

It’s nice to see that a slightly new name and ingredients mess this up. I’m quite pleased that it is basically indistinguishable from its predicessors where I can still give it my Seal and place it in the highest echellon of fine brews. See how it rates against other root beers.

Triple XXX Family Restaurant Root Beer

Root Beer Stand Root Beers No Responses »

May 012024

Last month I set out on a quest to view the total solar eclipse. If you’ve never seen a total solar eclipse, I cannot recommend it enough. Partial eclipses are neat, but really, absolutely, nothing like a total eclipse. Having that proper understanding, yet living outside of the path of totality, I determined that a quest must be had. I pragmatically picked the closest major city I could drive to without having to pay exorbitant hotel fees. And thus I decided on Indianapolis. Once that was decided the next objective, root beer. I stopped in Wisconsin Dells on the first day to visit the National Root Beer Museum. The second day the family and I had the lunch destination of the Triple XXX Family Restaurant. The last official Triple XXX root beer stand in existence and the first Drive In to open in Indiana, in 1931. The place was packed but we got in after a 30 minute wait and ordered food and brews. The place has the classic diner feel you’d expect, with waitresses with big pitchers of root beer filling up anyone in need. And a good thing too because that root beer is great.

The Body is sweet and rich and creamy with a nice vanilla flavor accenting the classic root beer stand taste. I almost want to say there’s some honey in it? The Bite is mild and smooth, could use a bit more spice but I still like it. The Head is medium and frothy. The Aftertaste is a nice sweet vanilla.

It’s that classic drive-in style I love. I know that the bottled version I tried way back when was kind of an inconsistent mess, but every mug (2 and a half of them this trip) I tried was spot on. The food was amazing as well. I tried a really different burger with peanut butter that was featured on Diner’s Drive-Ins and Dives. It was surprisingly good. This place alone would have made the eclipse quest a success. The fact that the weather was basically perfect on eclipse day made this hands down one of the most successful road trips I’ve ever done.

*You can see how packed it is on the inside.*

*My burger (chopped steak) with onion rings and a root beer.*

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