This is produced by the Boylan Bottling Company (I know big surprise) and has been around since 1891. It’s actually one of the more common brands of gourmet root beer. I’ve found it all across the nation and even in Canada. Yet, when I first got this over a decade ago, I mail ordered it in a variety pack. I probably should have just waited until I found it in my many travels, but you never know what you are going to run across before you buy it. Their website says that they let their sodas speak for themselves with “no hype, no marketing gimmicks.” So you’d forgive me for never knowing they were a commonly available until age and miles verified the fact. And to think, some of the others I passed up that day are long gone and I’ll never get a chance to try them … The bottle is kind of unique and with the painted logo rather old fashioned. For some reason it says Boylan Bottleworks on the bottle whereas the website calls themselves the Boylan Bottling Company. I’m not sure why they do that. There is no explanation anywhere. Even Wikipedia says that it was called the Boylan Bottling Company since its founding. So I’m at a loss.
This has a very strong Body and an alright Aftertaste. It says “best head” on the bottle but the Head is not that good. The Bite is okay.
This is a pretty ‘meh’ brew. It’s also pretty middle of the road so I can see why it would catch on. As one of those pure cane sugar sodas, people who like that would stock it. See how it rates against other root beers.
In high school I had several friends that were obsessed with the Mad Max trilogy. They even bought cars that looked somewhat like The Last V8 Interceptor and tried to make them more so. It was an infectious craze and soon we all would make ridiculous Road Warrior references at all occasions. It should come as no surprise then, that the in first variety pack of root beer I ever ordered, I had to include Mad River, because that is clearly what Mad Max would drink. It even says “Drink Mad” on the bottle. Upon receipt of my brew, I was of course the envy of our little group of Mad Max maniacs. But there’s so much more depth to this bottle than a Mel Gibson reference. They plastered all sorts of taglines and catch phrases on this in the hopes that one of them would stick. From clichés like “The original” to “Live it up, this is not a rehearsal” They even tell about their cold brewed process and how their all natural, a fact that escaped me back then because I didn’t even care. Evidently they even use some “traditional methods of a 125 year old brewery” whatever that’s supposed to mean. Interestingly the river in question is a rather small part of the label. You’d think they’d put more emphasis on that.
I’m bugged when people write root beer as rootbeer. I don’t like it. These people have clearly done it on their bottle, and so that’s what their soda is named. So that’s what I have to put. I wish they hadn’t. Okay, I’m done. Funny story about this root beer. It’s made in Silverdale and sold in that area including the Port Orchard farmers market. So why didn’t I find it when I went to both of those places on my quest for the 