Virgil’s has been around for a long time. It was ballyhooed to me greatly in the 90’s by many only to leave me quite disappointed when I finally tried it. Last year, however, there was a shake up in the company for some reason. I don’t know all of the details, but for some reason the bottling was moved to a new location, the fan favorite, Bavarian Nutmeg (the only one I liked) was discontinued, and the recipe and name was changed on the flagship root beer. Now it sports an all natural recipe and the name Handcrafted Root Beer as opposed to the original Micro Brewed designation. I guess the new bottler brews bigger batches and they do so by hand? I don’t know, but it means that I can write a new review on the new recipe with the new name cause it’s a new root beer and that makes me happy. The label picture is also slightly different yet similar and somehow not as cool, like the Digitally Remastered Edition… Anyways, root beer.
The Body is kind of dark and rather complex. There’s sarsaparilla, licorice, a hint of fruity, and some other stuff going on but it doesn’t really work. The Bite is mild with no discernable spices yet harsh at the same time in mouthfeel. The Head is tall initially but fizzes down really quickly. The Aftertaste is sarsaparilla with licorice hints and fruity notes.
I like this less than their original and I wasn’t a fan of that. I don’t know how they made it worse, but they did. It just doesn’t mix well. Their last version at least had a balanced flavor, even though I didn’t like it. This is all over the place while also failing to be good. So yeah, I don’t know what they hoped to accomplish by getting rid of their best root beer flavor and making their flagship worse, but I don’t have a lot of hope for this company. See how it rates against other root beers.
So Rocket Fizz is at it again. Not to be content with having essentially cornered the market on celebrity root beer (the uniqueness of each is growing increasingly dubious), they’ve taken to copying other “premium” root beers that are out there. Like how they copied the 
This was actually one of the first gourmet root beers that I ever heard about. At the time, I was around 15 and loved my Henry Weinhard’s. My older brother was talking one day about some amazing root beer and I thought he was talking about Henry’s but he said it was Virgil’s. But not the regular Virgil’s, the special Virgil’s in the spring top bottles. Sadly, he died before he was able to share a bottle with me, and though that led to me becoming the root beer connoisseur that I am today, I didn’t find that special Virgil’s until over 10 years later. I’d long since had the original Virgil’s before this but was not impressed at all. This one, though, promises a different, more special/nutmeg recipe that is imported from Bavaria evidently. I’m not sure why they want to stress that it’s from Bavaria. Last time I checked, all of the root beers that 
