Aug 152012
 

I got this on trade with another reviewer who goes by the name of Cosmo. He’s pretty much the Anti-Eric – He thinks Henry Weihard’s (pretty much my standard) is the worst root beer in the world and that IBC (his standard) is the best. To each his own I suppose but I can’t help but think that he looks down upon me for liking Henry’s so much (and IBC so little). Though I’d never spoken with him, I figured I would make a preemptive strike and out of the blue offer him one of the world’s last bottles of Thomas Kemper Purely Natural since he hadn’t reviewed it. The plan worked perfectly, though he still disagrees with me about many of my brews of choice. He sent a reciprocal offering of Blumers, though it isn’t the last in the world but that’s ok, I’ve never tried it. This stuff is made my Minhas Brewery, the same people who make The Cubby Bear, but the ingredients and nutritional info are different. It’s got a pretty cool label all frilled like a postage stamp and the bottle has and embossed ‘M’ in the glass.

It has a sweet and creamy medium Body with noticeable vanilla. Then there is a strange caramelized corn syrup herbal flavor that tastes a lot like bubble gum. The Bite is solid and spicy. The Head is short and fizzes down much too quickly, though it doesn’t leave in mere seconds so it could be worse. The Aftertaste is the bubble gum flavor that last way too long. It builds the more you drink until that is almost all you can taste. At the end of the long and gross bubble gum Aftertaste, it turns bitter.

Ugh. What a disappointment. That weird and bitter bubblegum flavor progressively overpowers everything else so the more I drink this, the less I want to keep drinking. I suppose it’s a good one to pass around amongst a group but really, a bottle by itself is not good at all. So Cosmo sent me a nasty root beer and I sent him a nasty root beer. Fair trade I suppose. See how it rates against other root beers.




May 092012
 

Another one from the Beverages Direct order. Though, this one isn’t even listed on their site, they had to tell me about it. They keep it hidden away, for reasons unknown, and drop it in the occasional mystery soda sampler box. It’s like they’re enticing you to buy random stuff in the hopes of uncovering a hidden gem of obscure root beers or something. Maybe they only reveal it to those who they find truly worthy, and at last I have so merited in their eyes. Whatever the reason, I was able to acquire it. It seems to be the root beer for a restaurant right across the street from Wrigley Field, where people go to party after Cubs games. I wonder if there’s something like that for the Mariners that I’ve been missing out on, but I digress. It’s brewed by Minhas Craft Brewery, which sounds like a Portuguese name to me, even though the website indicates that the immigrants who started the place seemed to be from everywhere but Portugal. Oh well.

This has a medium Body that is rather sweet. It’s moderately creamy with a vanilla flavor but on the whole it’s a little weak. There’s a very light Bite with few spices. The Head is short but rather frothy. The Aftertaste is a light vanilla flavor with the slightest hint of some fruity sour thing that is almost like bubble gum.

Overall this is a decent root beer but really nothing special about it. Maybe at the end of the day, that is why it’s tucked away. I’d still get it with some food after a Cubs game though. See how it rates against other root beers.