GourmetRootBeer

The Groovy Taste Root Beer

Feb 042015

The Groovy Taste Root Beer Bottle A gourmet root beer from Indonesia. It’s always good to have connections, and I have many. This one came from a student of mine (did you know that I’m an affiliate professor?). He was going home over the Christmas break, to Indonesia. I told him to get me some of this, which he promised to bring. And sure enough, he did. Joshua, you are the greatest student ever. This is made by KMI (Kreasi Mas Indah) Beverages. They started in 2008 and are located on the West Java, they have two carbonated soda brands, this root beer and some soda water, also “In addition to beverage product, [they] have personal care division with products Tabashi Bar Soap”. Because why not? Their bottle is small, only 250 ml compared to the standard 355 in this country. The label is simple and classic for a root beer.

The Body is sweet and creamy with a medium strength generic root beer flavor. The Bite is very mild with little spice but adequate carbonation. It’s smooth so I can’t complain much, just for lack of spice. The Head is extremely tall and frothy. It couldn’t really be any better. The Aftertaste is a pleasant vanilla and cane sugar flavor.

Very nice. Very nice indeed. This non-North American root beer tastes like a proper creamy root beer. I’ve never had that before. No strange fruity, weird herbal, or extra sour. Just creamy, sweet root beer goodness. It’s still rather generic, though, if I were in foreign lands and really craving a root beer, this would be good enough, unlike anything else I’ve ever tried from abroad. It also has that extra good Head giving bonus points. See how it rates against other root beers.

Root Beer Bowl 2015 – Eric’s Gourmet Root Beer Super Bowl XLIX Prediction

Random Root Beer-ness No Responses »

Jan 302015

Root Beer Bowl XLIX
It’s that time of year when the Super Bowl comes upon us. The biggest TV event in the US and massive celebrations shall ensue. Being from the Seattle area, this is especially exciting to see the Seahawks return as defending champions. There are many wacky ways that have been used to predict the winner, from rabbits, puppys, porcupines, search engines, and video game simulations. These are of course all rubbish. The most accurate predictor is one that I’ve known for years but only now make public. It is the Root Beer Bowl Predictor. Look at the three best bottled root beers from the respective teams’ larger home zone, Seattle area for the Seahawks, all of Massachusetts for the Patriots, and see the combined ratings. The keg difference in the rating multiplied by touchdowns gives the spread. The best root beer will win. Every time. Without question. Seriously.

So let’s get on to the teams. The team “captain” in this case is the highest rated brew from the city proper. For Seattle this is the Seal of Approval rated Jones Root Beer coming in at the lowest 4 kegs. The rest of the Seahawks’ root beer team comes from a 20 minute drive to the north in Mukilteo, WA, where Orca beverages makes the near peerless Bulldog Root Beer and the solid Brownie Caramel Cream Root Beer. This gives a team rating of 12.5 with nothing but Seal of Approval brews.

For the Patriots the captain is Emack & Bolio’s Rock It Root Beer. Very delicious but a poor Head relegates it to a mere 3.5. The rest Patriots’ Root Beer team line up comes from from Worcester, MA. The first is Polar Classics Root Beer with a respectable 3.5. Their final member is a sleeper, Ginseng UP, but not the Ginseng UP name brand root beer (which I haven’t reviewed yet), but their default private label recipe that they supply to the world’s private labelers. A Seal of Approval brew at 4 kegs. Then the Patriots’ final lineup gives them 11.

Prediction: Though the Patriots have a strong root beer lineup, it isn’t enough to overcome Seattle’s all-star lineup. I see the Seahawks winning this by 10 points. GO SEAHAWKS!!!

Root Beer Bowl Team Lineups:
Seattle: Jones – 4; Bulldog – 4.5; Brownie Caramel Cream – 4 = 12.5
Boston: Rockit – 3.5; Ginseng UP – 4, Polar – 3.5 = 11

Hank’s Premium Root Beer

Bottled Root Beers 1 Response »

Jan 282015

More than any other root beer, Hank’s is the reason that Eric’s Gourmet Root Beer Site exists. You see, the web was young and free hosting was just recently made available at places like Geocities. It was the cool thing to do to make a website. After seriously considering making a website about a combination of three of my favorite things, cheese, Jethro Tull, and Star Craft, (The Eric’s Cheese, Jethro Tull, and Star Craft Site was going to be AWESOME I swear) the idea came to make one about gourmet root beer instead. Since I’d only tried eight different kinds of gourmet root beer (there wasn’t a lot of variety in a town of 5,000 people) at that point I figured I needed to expand a bit. I found Hank’s online and asked my Mom to order it for me. I had a whole $15. She called and they said that they’d never sent anything to Washington State before and they figured it’d be very expensive. She said she’d have to call back because she was buying it for her son who was making a website but he didn’t have much money. Then they decided that since it was for a website, and thus free publicity, they’d send a whole case as a free sample. How very generous. Also, it put a lot of expectation on me to actually follow through and make the website since I was paid in advance as it were. And thus Eric’s Gourmet Root Beer Site was born.

This is sooo goooood! It has a wonderfully full Body that is rich and creamy and a nice spicy Bite. The Head is almost perfect. Aftertaste is very pleasant.

As you can tell, I really liked it then (I’ve kept what I originally wrote back in 1998). It put me in quite an enigma because at the time it was the best brew I’d ever had, but I hadn’t had very many. I put it at 4.5 kegs and after many years I revisited it in my Ultimate Root Beer Showdown and realized that after nearly 150 root beers, it was still the best. But many years later, I realized that was because they had slightly changed their recipe and their name. So I’m keeping this version where it was and elevating their more recent iteration, acknowledging their slight tweak was just enough. See how it rates against other root beers.

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