Surprise! There’s another Maple Island Brewing root beer! I didn’t even know myself until I showed up. I mean, I’d discovered the brewery the first time I went to Stillwater and was walking around, and then brought my family back to try it (and walk around) and then I discover they make not one, but two different root beers! If this review came out of nowhere for you guys, that’s how I felt, no foreshadowing, no preparation, just more root beer. As their website says, “[their] name is Maple Island, isn’t it? Gotta have a maple-flavored rootbeer.” I wholeheartedly agree, and also realize that if I’d spent a bit more time actually researching them I probably wouldn’t have been surprised. But whatever. I figured the best way to solve this problem was to review their root beer, walk through the downtown and do the shoppings and stair climbings, and then end right back where we started and have the maple, which is what we proceeded to do.
The Body is rich with a nice maple flavor that doesn’t overpower. There’s a little tinge of sarsaparilla and some vanilla in there. The Bite is very smooth, not really any spice to speak of. The Head is super short and gone quickly. It’s barely a Head at all. The Aftertaste is maple and vanilla. It’s very yummy.
The flavor is very nice, but that Head and lack of spices really draw it down. You can tell they didn’t just take their root beer recipe and throw in some extra maple, they went for something extra smooth and rich. I like it a lot, better then their original, but not enough for a Seal, not without a foamy Head, sorry. But still good, so yeah, definitely make Stillwater a destination. Three draft root beers a mere 10 minutes from each other and a nice historic downtown. And stairs, gotta climb those stairs.