Ah Fentiman’s. Makers of Dandelion and Burdock soda and some other English flavours. Long have I hoped for the day when they would release a root beer, figuring it was right up their alley, despite the fact that it is a uniquely American drink. And now, they finally have! And called it Old English Root Beer, which is something root beer is most decidedly not. Maybe, I suppose, one could argue that there’s a old English way of making sodas, like dandelion and burdock, and when those techniques are applied to root beer it makes it an “old English” root beer, but that’s a stretch. Whatever, they made a root beer, in the UK, and are selling it all over America so I can drink it and complain about it’s name in both print and video form. Truly no greater gifts were given to me by company without a history of making root beer. Any ways, UK root beers are generally bad, almost exclusively, so how is this?
The Body is sweet but not overly so. There’s a complex botanical sarsaparilla flavor with accents of fermented ginger and sweet pear nectar that somehow all works together in a way that makes it intriguing to drink. The Bite is mild but it isn’t smooth. The Head is amazing. One of the best ever. The Aftertaste is a nectary sarsaparilla.
So, um, huh. I expected it to be kind of nasty, what with the “pear juice concentrate” in the ingredients. And yet, they’ve managed to keep it tasting root beer enough to make me acknowledge that they’ve done better than other British brews. It’s not bad. It’s not really good either, but it’s unique enough that it’s worth trying once. And while no one will say that it’s a good root beer. I think most will probably think of it as a decent soda and an experience worth having once. Just not multiple times. See how it rates against other root beers.
Yet another UK root beer. Well, kind of a UK root beer. Soda Folk is a UK company and this brew can only be obtained there, but the owner is from Colorado and the root beer is actually made by the Tommyknocker Brewery. I figured it out when I saw they used maple syrup and aged vanilla which Tommyknocker also uses. The labels used identical paper as well. The owner, Ken, said that it was even Tommyknocker’s recipe. Then I had to figure out which recipe it was since Tommyknocker seems to have a new recipe every other year, and whether or not it was unique. As best as I could track down it appeared to be 
A rare find indeed is this brew. All the way from the London borough of Hackney. That’s right another UK brew. They are as rare as they are awful, historically speaking, though this could be just the brew to break that losingest of streaks. I mean, it seems like they’re going for a pun, Square Root and root beer, and I just love puns. Plus a math pun with the square root sign on the label. That’s pretty … radical … The rest of label is way cool too, what with those nifty plants and bordered text. You can’t see it in the picture, but the label is textured so it feels really nice on the fingers. But then again, there are things that don’t bode so well for them. Square Root London Soda was started in 2012 with ginger beer as their first flavor, which kind of dashes the whole pun, though not entirely as ginger is a root. The math is still cool. But then there’s this on the label: “Root Beer is not for everyone. If you like it you probably don’t understand why you like it but you just do. Sit back, think rooty thoughts & enjoy this medicinal mix of unusual flavors.” Yeah, um that’s not generally the best way to introduce something that you think is amazing. The ingredients listed seem legit though, so who knows.
