GourmetRootBeer

Theo Root Beer Barrel 55% Dark Chocolate

Jan 092019

So my first root beer product review in my new format. Hopefully you’ll enjoy reading these as much as much standard root beer reviews, or at least they’ll be like, three keg blog posts, “drinkable” as it were, enough to get you through to the good times of proper reviews. If you think of any way to improve these, do let me know in the comments. Anyways, what to pick for my very first? I picked this Theo Root Beer Barrel 55% Dark Chocolate bar because one of my coworkers was kind enough to anonymously leave it on my desk. How very kind of them. I did eventually find out who it was after a few wrong guesses, and I am going to publicly say, thank you Brian, you’re the best! So Theo is an organic fair trade chocolate company coming out of my old stomping grounds of Seattle. They have a bunch of different specialty flavors including this root beer barrel one. I’ve had root beer barrels before (I’ll write about them soon enough) but never mixed with chocolate. So how is this?

It’s a nice dark chocolate with crunch coming from crushed root beer barrel candy. The flavor of the root beer barrels doesn’t really come through much at all. It does seems to enhance the chocolate a bit, but it’s still so subtle I doubt I’d be able to tell it was root beer barrels if I weren’t told.

It’s a nice chocolate bar, yet it leaves me disappointed as a root beer lover, since the root beer didn’t shine. Maybe a chocolate connoisseur would appreciate it more than a root beer connoisseur, but I got to call it as I see it. Good dark chocolate, poor root beer chocolate. So do I recommend it? Not if you’re looking for a root beer flavored candy, but it is a good chocolate bar.

Gold Mine Root Beer

Bottled Root Beers No Responses »

Jan 022019

Gold Mine Root Beer Bottle Another super premium packaged root beer. There’ve been more of these as late, and I for one am happy to see root beer taken to the next level. This is from Rocket Fizz, maker of many celebrity root beers of varying quality. The bottle size and wax seal immediately made me think of Indian Wells Special Reserve. They actually are both made at the same place, but are unique recipes. Plus this has shiny gold wax. In keeping with the old-timey feel, they have stock certificates in the Rocket Fizz Gold Mining Company. Each stock certificate is worth 1/5th of a root beer, a Death Valley Root Beer, which is also made by Indian Wells, but well, um, isn’t a root beer worth getting at all. So, yeah, stock in a worthless root beer is available as part of the gimmick with this. But what about the brew itself?

It has a rich creamy Body with distinctive, yet not overpowering licorice. Like, just enough that I still like it, which isn’t a lot. There is a minty hint to it as well. The Bite could be spicier, but it is present. It’s mild and on the smooth side. The Head is most excellent. Very tall and foamy and just perfect. The Aftertaste is a sweet, spiced vanilla. Very pleasant.

It’s a complex and yummy brew, though not as good as the Special Reserve, it still squeaks by at a Seal of Approval, just barely. I was quite on the fence with this, but the second bottle won me over. Who cares about those stock certificates, just give me more of this. Though, at the price point ($7/bottle), I doubt I’ll be buying much more. See how it rates against other root beers.

A New Year, a New Era

Website Updates No Responses »

Jan 012019

So, it’s been eight years since I started this blog as part of my site, giving a weekly review every Wednesday. It’s been quite a journey and my devotion to root beer couldn’t be stronger, but, unfortunately, I’m faced with the reality that there just aren’t 52 new types of bottled root beers being made a year, and I’ve found just about all that there are to be had. Those I’m still searching for won’t be able to keep up with the inexorable march of time. And while I had an unprecedented year of travel in 2018, and hope to continue the pace in 2019, I’m not going to find enough new breweries and root beer stands to keep pace. I’m sorry, the weekly root beer review, cannot continue. A weekly post, however, can. I won’t lower my standards and drink from cans and plastic bottles, neither will I review sarsaparillas, birch beers, and the like, but there are a lot of root beer things out there. There’s songs, books, movies, and root beer flavored food, like candies, cookies, and ice cream. And I’m going to start exploring these, for the love of root beer, and share that exploration with you all.

So here’s how it’s going to go down:

The first Wednesday of every month will be a standard root beer review as we’ve come to know and love.
Every other Wednesday will be a post about something root beer related. A kind of review about the product and how I feel about it.

Obviously with such a diverse range of things I won’t be giving keg ratings, but I will give either a recommend or a skip sort of review, to let you know if whatever it is captures the spirit and flavor of root beer properly. I’ll also be augmenting these posts with some more of my homebrew adventures, having received as a Christmas presents the means to properly carbonate my brews (more on that in later posts).

I hope this works out and everyone likes this new direction. Please let me know in the comments if you got any other ideas or general feedback on my idea. Sorry again I can’t just keep doing weekly reviews, but the brews just aren’t there. So here’s to the next stage of The Gourmet Root Beer Blog!

Older Entries Newer Entries