Dec 192012
 

First of all, the label is slightly terrifying. I don’t know the style that they are going for, but the guy/girl … person with the enormous eyes, huge lips, and long tongue with a burger in one hand and a root beer in the other is frightening. Secondly, for a ‘giant’ root beer, it is the SAME FREAKING SIZE AS EVERY OTHER ROOT BEER! Though after following the website on the bottle (which actually works to their credit) I learned that this is a burger joint in West Seattle called Zippy’s Giant Burgers, so that’s where the Giant Root Beer comes from. For a single burger joint with only one location to have their own brand of bottled root beer is really cool (and local at that), so they are forgiven for name, and even the terrifying bottle. However, they also claim “a classic since 2008”. Now normally such a claim would require several decades to pass before you can claim you have a classic product, even though technically it is a correct usage of the word, so I’m going to say they’re jumping the gun a bit.

The Body has a medium sassafras flavor with some vanilla and honey that gives way to a slightly sour fruity flavor after several seconds. Though there is vanilla it isn’t very creamy. There is a strong carbonation bite that gives it a harsh mouth feel but there aren’t any spices. So it has a lot of the bad Bite and not much of the good. The Head bubbles up high, but isn’t frothy and fizzes away quickly. The Aftertaste is vanilla fruitiness with a dash of honey that doesn’t last too long.

It’s not bad, but the sour fruity flavor really detracts from the Body, and the Bite and Head could use some work. It’s kind of sad because they use some quality ingredients. I think a major flaw is putting in more citric acid than vanilla extract, but what do I know. I don’t think I’d make a trek all the way back to Seattle just for this. Though, they seem to make some pretty epic burgers and have an ever revolving line of retro sodas in glass bottles (including other root beers) served at their restaurant, so I’ll probably drop by next time I’m in the neighborhood. See how it rates against other root beers.