Another root beer from England. And not just any British brew, but one that is actually brewed in a medieval brew house. They dip the bottles in wax as was customary in medieval times since the glass then was too porous to be watertight. That makes for one of the coolest bottles I’ve ever seen. And what a cool name. Seems like it should have been the beverage of choice in Harry Potter or something. I actually ordered this one and had it shipped surface mail since my tosser of a manager couldn’t seem to find it (and I was WAY too impatient to wait for him to go back to get it). Sadly they packed it in mulched paper which left fibres all stuck in the wax and required extensive cleaning. The ingredients are allegedly foraged in a local river valley and then hand brewed in small batches. They say it’s a 1950’s diner style root beer so I had great hopes for it to be much better than the last UK root beer (Hartridge’s) I tried.
It has a mildly sweet medium Body that is extremely different than any other root beer I’ve ever tasted. The strange herbal flavor has some of the standard root beer essences but also some other stuff that just isn’t right. It almost tastes like fermented bubble gum at some point and then a medicine. It almost makes me want to gag but then doesn’t quite. This is probably because the flavor isn’t very strong. There’s a noticeable ginger flavor but no Bite at all, nothing. The Head is similar, a few bubbles but it doesn’t even cover the entire surface and there isn’t even a fizz release. “Lightly Carbonated” indeed! The Aftertaste is a sort of fermented fruity herbal flavor that reminds me of the white sangria I was recently tricked into taking a mouthful of (I was in Portugal and they told me it was potato juice, I spit it out).
So, um, I don’t like this at all, not one bit! Especially when you consider that this is their 1950’s diner style interpretation. I mean, this stuff makes Hartridge’s taste good! It isn’t the worst brew I’ve tasted, but it ranks up there with them. Perhaps it was the witches that they mentioned in the paper I was sent with the bottles who often ‘spoil’ batches of brew. If this is the case, that was a strong spell they used, perhaps Lord Voldemort himself cursed it. Though, they did say it had an antiseptic flavor like Germaline, so maybe this is how it’s supposed to taste. But they do have a really cool bottle, especially when you consider that they also sell this in wax sealed stone crocks, which may be the coolest root beer bottle ever conceived. They are the true embodiment of the 1 Keg brew. See how it rates against other root beers.
The first thing that jumps out at me with this is that it looks bland and cheap. I mean, white and blue on a clear bottle? Even their trade mark “GOLD COIN” is still just a blue outline. They couldn’t even afford some gold ink for their trademark? And then there’s the the logo. “Always Ask for Avery’s” but using only 2 ‘A’s and 2 S’s. I’m all for efficiency and cost cutting, but stacking your words in three lines just so you can use one ridiculously large ‘A’ as the first letter of each word in the stack seems a bit of a stretch. When you consider that they do the same thing with the ‘S’ at the end, it just looks silly. Especially since since the bottom of said ‘S’ doesn’t line up with the rest of the curve for some reason. Oh well, they have been making sodas for over 100 years, so maybe this is their original label and was all the rage at the time. I can only guess.
