Another root beer with an exclamatory phrase as the title. While So Duh! Rockin’ Root Beer was at least a play on words and an insinuation of the obvious, as is clearly seen on this bottle the “Dang!” is the centerpiece. Though “dang” can easily be a good interjection, it can also be used quite negatively. The fact that the “That’s Good” is in such small font makes it all the easier to misread the title of this root beer and think that they are aiming more towards the Rat Bastard Root Beer types. And anyways, what’s with this exclamatory naming trend anyhow? What’s next, a Holy Crap! Root Beer? What about a WTF Root Beer? This could easily be taken to the extreme. Why not just name it after the company founder, or place, or your favorite beetle (probably dung beetle would not be a good idea either), or your favorite type of dog (which plenty seem to do)? Well whatever, so how does it stack up?
Dang! It is sealed tighter than most twist caps. That doesn’t really impact its rating at all but I was just throwing it out there. It has a full Body with the standard root beer flavors. There is something slightly out of place with the flavor though, maybe a little too much licorice root or something. It is also a tad creamy. Dang! The Bite is pretty sharp on carbonation and very light on spices, rather the reverse of how it should be. Dang it! It even gave me the hiccups. The Head is pretty weak and fizzes away in seconds. Dang! I like a good Head. The Aftertaste is pretty empty and is just a sugar flavor with the tiniest bit of vanilla that quickly evanesces, dang. There is nothing really special about this brew at all and the Head and the Aftertaste are gravely lacking.
So I find that when drinking this root beer I say “Dang!” a lot. Though much to my chagrin it wasn’t saying “Dang! That’s good,” or anything else that is overly positive. It is drinkable though so I’ll give them that. See how it rates against other root beers.
Sacramento is a special city to me. Both of my grandparents lived there and so we would go every summer for a week or two. After I became a root beer connoisseur, Sacramento was a place where I found many a new brew to review. The very first summer after my root beer ascension, while I was looking for root beers in the Sacramento mall near old town, I came across the River City Brewing company. They made their own root beer but only sold it on tap. It was amazing. I wished they bottled it so I could review it. They didn’t so I moved on, always remembering that amazing brew. Well when I came across this, I did a double take. Had the amazing root beer of my nascent days of a root beer aficionado finally been bottled? River City Root Beer is from Sacramento. Sadly though, it is made from different manufactures, so my dream remains yet unfulfilled. I was still excited, however, to try a brew birthed in the city of such root beer legacy. This time, I was not disappointed.
“G’day Mate, I ‘ear you been lookin’ for some root beer Down Under. Well Bundaberg’s all we got, it’s Australian for root beer.” I suppose that would be how the conversation would go if I went to Australia and was looking for a root beer. It has a pretty cool short bottle that is actually 0.7 fl oz larger than the standard root beer bottle. It is also brewed so that got my hopes up. On the label is says “Invert bottle before opening” I found this rather curious. I wasn’t sure if they were saying that because ingredients would settle, or if they were implying that right-side up for them down there, would be upside down for us up here which would then require us to invert the bottle before we opened it to avoid spilling it everywhere. Not to ruin my root beer though, I dutifully inverted the bottle and made sure it was then right-side up before opening. When I poured it into the glass I noticed particles in suspension. So it seems that the reason to invert it is the former and not the latter.
