“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.
The Body on this is not really like anything I’ve ever tasted before. The very first drink of the bottle makes me almost gag of surprise but then it isn’t so bad. Then is a strange and complex flavor that is fruity, so much fruity. I didn’t expect that fruit flavor at all. Not really much root beer flavor, but not terrible. It is actually very sweet. The Bite is very mellow and sour. The Head is actually not bad. It builds to a medium height and has a decent amount of frothiness to it. It still fizzes away faster than it should, though. The Aftertaste is a very tart fruity flavor with the faintest trace of some creamy vanilla.
It actually isn’t bad, but it doesn’t seem to be a root beer. If you relabeled the bottle and called it something else (I’m not sure what) I am sure that it would be a quite good whatever it should be called. I suppose this is what the Aussies think root beer should taste like. It is also pretty disappointing because based on the ingredients, it should be much better than this. Intriguingly, like Mercury Root Beer, they put two kegs on the bottle. I think that this time they are spot on. See how it rates against other root beers.
The bottle on this one is pretty cool. It’s got a picture of the god Mercury drinking from a mug and has root beer bubbles everywhere. I don’t really like the fact that they call it root beer soda pop, as I like to think of root beer as a premium brewed carbonated beverage and not something as low class as a soda pop. Though, Sprecher’s calls theirs root beer soda and that is amazing, while Virgil’s calls theirs premium micro brew and it is pretty bad. So I guess what you call it isn’t nearly as important as its Body, Bite, Head, and Aftertaste. This is also sold as Freaky Dog Rooff Beer, the two are exactly the same.
So I’d had this sitting around for awhile. The problem is that I’m pretty susceptible to caffeine since I hardly ever drink anything caffeinated. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that I usually taste test in the late evening, not the time you want a cup of coffee portion of caffeine. Then last night, as my wife began to go into labor with our second child, I realized that, like with the first baby, we would be spending the entire night in labor and delivery, without sleep, and with a lot of waiting. That’s when it hit me, this would be the perfect time to taste test the two bottles of G33k B33r. So, in addition to all of the other things we had packed, in went the G33k B33r, my A&W mug, and a bottle of Henry’s for comparison. In the wee hours of the morning, as the miracle of life was manifesting itself, I passed the time and kept my energy up by drinking this root beer. Though, I must admit, because of its genre, I didn’t have high expectations.