Back in September, as I was busy searching for new root beers, I discovered Thomas Kemper Purely Natural Root Beer on another reviewers blog. I was surprised, because I had never seen or even heard about this brew and Thomas Kemper is made in Portland, and can be found all over the Seattle area and the Pacific Northwest in general. Nearly every grocery store and gas station carries it. I figured it must be so new that it hadn’t had time to proliferate through the region. I sent the company an email asking which retail outlets carried it, and kept my eye out as I traveled around. After a few months of not seeing it, I sent the company another email asking where I could find it. I got a response from the company president telling me that they had recently discontinued the purely natural line. What?? A gourmet root beer had been born and killed right under my nose before I ever knew it existed? Say it ain’t so! Then it occurred to me, that if it was just recently discontinued, there might still be some bottles floating around out there. I searched Amazon, Ebay, all of the specialty online stores that sell root beer. Nothing. Then I took my search back to a distributor, Real Soda. I noticed it was listed on their site, but so is Journey John Barleycorn and Dr. Tima, both of which are long since dead, but I emailed them nonetheless. To my great joy, they said they still had 11 cases. I quickly made arrangements and ordered a 12 pack, 8 bottles of this stuff and 2 bottles of two other varieties. Whew, that was too close.
The Body of this is weak in the normal root beer flavors but really strong in honey and fruity. I mean there is a very significant citrusy fruity flavor that comes in after the initial flavors and overpowers them. I think this can be blamed on the pectin they put in there for some reason. There isn’t really much Bite, a little carbonation tingle but a distinct lack of spices. The Head is excellent, tall and frothy, and is the one redeeming feature of the brew. The Aftertaste is a fruity honey flavor that lasts far too long. This flavor compounds so the more you drink the stronger it gets and the less you want to drink it.
For comparison, with the second bottle, I had a regular Thomas Kemper side as well, and this is worse in all categories. I mean, it isn’t even remotely like the regular Thomas Kemper. This stuff is really bad. What astounds me is that they start with cane sugar, honey, and maltodextrin, like Bulldog, and still manage to make it horrible. Why did they make it taste overwhelmingly fruity? I don’t know, but thankfully it has been discontinued so the masses can be spared its vileness. Perhaps that is the true reason for it’s demise. See how it rate against other root beers.
Thomas Kemper Soda of Portland, OR, recently discontinued their Purely Natural Soda line that had been sold in Whole Foods Market and other natural food stores. The line was launched in June 2010. Said company president, Bill Germano, “We loved the product but had difficulty in production.” The remaining stock of Purely Natural Sodas is being sold. As of the time of this post there are still limited quantities available for purchase at a few select outlets.