GourmetRootBeer

Devil’s Canyon Brand Root Beer

Aug 222012

So this is my first Draft and Keg Root Beers review to not appear as a bonus review, and I think that all of the others will be Wednesday reviews as well. I’m sorry, there’s only a finite amount of root beers in the world and even fewer bottled ones so I need to keep the regular pace as much as possible. I was down in San Francisco taking care of some business and then decided to go down to San Jose to visit an old college room mate who was also the best man at my wedding. My scouring of the internet revealed that Devil’s Canyon Brewery was on the way just off of HWY 101. They only let you buy pints and growlers Fridays 4-6 pm which worked out well since I started out for San Jose at 3:30 on a Friday. When I got there came up with a paper and pen, a camera, and specific instructions on my pint, no plastic cup but an actual glass, pour it so it builds a nice Head, and pour it once I’m ready to get a picture afterwards. As I began to drink and take notes, they figured I was more than just the average root beer fan and asked who I was with, promising to check my site. They also informed their brew mistress/owner who came to tell me more about it.

The Body is medium with fruity and slightly creamy hints. There’s some honey that comes through and it has a nice clean mouth feel. It is also really smooth with only a little Bite from some spice. The Head is short but frothy. It could be much better. The Aftertaste is fruity and vanilla.

It’s not bad, but I really don’t like the fruity. I thought it was citric acid at first but was informed that in addition to organic cane sugar and local Belmont, CA honey, they use local agave nectar as a sweetener. That’s where it comes from. It kind of ruined it for me. The Head could be much better as well. It’s better than your generic store brand, though, I didn’t feel it warranted a growler as a gift to my friend.

Their little tap stand outside the brewery. Notice the Root Beer Tap.

Blumers Root Beer

Bottled Root Beers 2 Responses »

Aug 152012

I got this on trade with another reviewer who goes by the name of Cosmo. He’s pretty much the Anti-Eric – He thinks Henry Weihard’s (pretty much my standard) is the worst root beer in the world and that IBC (his standard) is the best. To each his own I suppose but I can’t help but think that he looks down upon me for liking Henry’s so much (and IBC so little). Though I’d never spoken with him, I figured I would make a preemptive strike and out of the blue offer him one of the world’s last bottles of Thomas Kemper Purely Natural since he hadn’t reviewed it. The plan worked perfectly, though he still disagrees with me about many of my brews of choice. He sent a reciprocal offering of Blumers, though it isn’t the last in the world but that’s ok, I’ve never tried it. This stuff is made my Minhas Brewery, the same people who make The Cubby Bear, but the ingredients and nutritional info are different. It’s got a pretty cool label all frilled like a postage stamp and the bottle has and embossed ‘M’ in the glass.

It has a sweet and creamy medium Body with noticeable vanilla. Then there is a strange caramelized corn syrup herbal flavor that tastes a lot like bubble gum. The Bite is solid and spicy. The Head is short and fizzes down much too quickly, though it doesn’t leave in mere seconds so it could be worse. The Aftertaste is the bubble gum flavor that last way too long. It builds the more you drink until that is almost all you can taste. At the end of the long and gross bubble gum Aftertaste, it turns bitter.

Ugh. What a disappointment. That weird and bitter bubblegum flavor progressively overpowers everything else so the more I drink this, the less I want to keep drinking. I suppose it’s a good one to pass around amongst a group but really, a bottle by itself is not good at all. So Cosmo sent me a nasty root beer and I sent him a nasty root beer. Fair trade I suppose. See how it rates against other root beers.

Firemans Brew Root Beer

Bottled Root Beers No Responses »

Aug 082012

Firemans Brew is the creation of some fireman in LA who thought it would be cool to both make a whole line of refreshing micro-brewed drinks, made by firemen for firemen, and confuse spell checkers by not putting an apostrophe in between the ‘n’ and the ‘s’ in their company name, even though it is clearly a possessive. Well, actually I don’t know if the second was truly one of their stated objectives but they accomplished it nonetheless. Maybe they were trying to say firemen in a cooler way, like firemans, but you’d have to be an L.A. fireman to get the joke, I’m not sure. I do love the idea of a fireman root beer, because you know, things are pretty tough for firemen and they run into burning buildings and save people so they deserve a good brew to relax into after saving little Timmy and then getting the cat out of the tree and whatnot. It’s got a pretty classy look too, probably to impress the ladies, since they always go for a guy in uniform, or a root beer for that matter. I love the line “Extinguish your thirst” even if it is entirely expected in this case.

The Body is dark and a tad creamy from what seems a hint of vanilla. There seems to be some anise and wintergreen. It tastes rather generic though; I swear I’ve had numerous root beers with this same flavor repertoire. It is toned down from some of those stouts so it isn’t too bad. The Bite is decent, and the overall brew is pretty smooth. The Head is tall and pretty frothy. It fizzes down a bit quicker than I prefer but it is still good. The Aftertaste is a dark anise flavor with accents of vanilla and wintergreen.

So it seems that these firemans like stout anise-y brews. I can’t say that they’re my favorites but this one isn’t bad. I really struggled about where to rate this one. It’s a decent brew but doesn’t seem to have any really distinguishing qualities about it to boost it over the top. The nice Head though was eventually enough to push it above a 3 to a low 3.5. See how it rates against other root beers.

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