Another one from anthony as part of our on going root beer trades. The picture on the label is hilarious/ridiculous. The root beer keg, while firing off his six shooters, is actively trying to drink the drops of root beer coming out of the tap. But since the tap is where his nose would be, it’s akin to being excited to drink out of one’s own runny nose. But then the fact that he’s a root beer keg means, that what he drinks will go back into the keg, so maybe he just doesn’t want to waste any root beer. And then he’s shooting as well and … maybe I’m just over thinking it. Fun back story. About three weeks before I tried this I had bought some blue agave nectar from Trader Joe’s to see how it went with waffles. I liked it a lot and mused that it would taste really good in root beer while lamenting that the other non-blue agave flavored root beers I’ve had have not been stellar.
The Body is full and rich with creamy vanilla and blue agave nectar featuring prominently. It has a rather heavy feel to it which I think is from said nectar. Everything mingles together to give a wonderful flavor that’s familiar and comforting as well as unique. The Bite is very mild. There’s a little spice but the carbonation is really lacking. The Head is poor, there’s no point mincing words over that. It’s very short, yet frothy so as to be better than the two-second-Head. It’s just that it isn’t carbonated enough to build a Head. The Aftertaste is a delicious combination of the blue agave and vanilla that lasts the perfect amount of time.
Wow, yummy. I was right about blue agave in root beer. The only flaw in this is that it really doesn’t have much carbonation, which was their stated goal on the bottle. They wanted to make it so that it would go better in floats so no over foaming. I can respect that, but without a better Head, it can’t get the Seal, what a shame. Give this sucker a Henry’s style Head and some more Bite and we’re talking top 10 root beers ever, maybe even top 5. Oh well, it would make some amazing floats at least. See how it rates against other root beers.
The first root beer that I encountered from Old Town Root Beer Company is ironically the last I end up writing about. I know, I know, I wish everything were chronological too but that’s what happens when you’ve been reviewing root beers for longer than blogs have existed. Give me another year or so and all the old ones should be worked through. Anyways, the fact that we have three different root beers from the same company makes them one of the coolest companies in the world. Then they go and ruin it for themselves by putting their url on the label of this root beer and then not even bothering to pay the $10/year fee to keep said website so it doesn’t work when you visit it. I mean, seriously, it’s not that expensive. Their label is also really busy with small text and not near enough emphasis on their logo. They just have so much to tell us and not hardly enough room. Some of that text is to claim to be a “premium micro-brewed root beer” made with only the “Finest” ingredients, which evidently includes sodium benzoate and “other Flavors.”
Way back in mid April my wife said that she wanted to go to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. It’s over an hour drive north so I said that I’d look into it. I immediately started looking to see if there was any breweries with root beer. Ironically, the Skagit River Brewery was right there, but I’d just reviewed it a mere two weeks before. None of the others seemed to have any but I sent out emails. La Conner Brewing Company responded that they made their own and served it tapped out of the brew vats. Well that settled it, we were going to Tulip Festival! We took the morning and went to Tulip Town and I was completely amazed at the acres and acres of blooming tulips. The day was beautiful and we spent several hours walking in the field and took a tractor ride. Then we drove another 10 minutes, past more tulip fields, to La Conner for lunch. The first thing I did was order a root beer, no ice, lots of Head.
