Draft and Keg Root Beers – Eric's Gourmet Root Beer Blog

Pizza Port House Root Beer

Aug 052026

Back in May I was in San Diego, working, DERMSing, and also, visiting my Aunt Mom. I call her my Aunt Mom because she’s my Mom’s identical twin and she does look and sound uncannily like my mom. It is a strange experience growing up having a parent with a twin. Anyways, enough of that. Pizza Port. We met up and decided to go there because I’d known about Pizza Port for awhile now but had never the time to get there. Sometimes I’m far too busy to take an excursion. This time I wasn’t. Pizza Port is a small pizza and brewery chain around the San Diego area. The owners have been running it since 1987 with focus on great pizza and house brewed beers, for which they’ve won quite a few rewards. They also brew a house root beer, which my Aunt and cousins and I went to try along with some pizza.

The Body is sweet but not too sweet with a solid sassafras core that just, is. There aren’t a lot of other flavors in there. There’s Bite though, it’s spicy, but other than sassafras and those Bite spices, it’s just, plain. The Head is very short but it does maintain a slight ring of foam around the rim. The Aftertaste is light and then gone quickly.

This root beer is all core and no accents. It’s perfectly generic yet not at all unpleasant. It complements their pizza extraordinarily well and though I didn’t get one of their root beer floats, I imagine that a scoop of quality vanilla ice cream would make a heavenly float. So while it isn’t the best root beer by any means, it’s quite a well designed root beer for a meal/float option. The specialty pizza options are pretty impressive and the Meet Extreme Meat pizza we got was just amazing.

Ancestry Draft Root Beer

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Jun 032026

Back in February I was in Portland doing what I do best, DERMSing. This wasn’t the first time I’ve been to Portland for such reasons. In fact I was there fall of last year, when I was doing my crazy travel schedule. I had checked near my hotel, in Tualatin, and found Ancestry brewing back then, but I was with quite a few coworkers and we were in a hurry so I filed it away as something to hit for the next trip, which trip was this February. That’s a long way of saying I was expecting to hit this place up. We actually barely made it in time to order dinner and the root beer.

The Body is sweet and rich with some vanilla and wintergreen. It’s a pretty typical flavor profile about halfway between a creamy classic and a dark old fashioned that just tastes like good root beer. The Bite is mild and smooth with a little carbonation prickle slight spice. The Head is medium tall with good staying power. The Aftertaste is sweet with a bit of vanilla but not much.

There’s nothing that really stands out on this but it’s a good total package. Better than average and plenty fine with the meal of fish and chips with some pretzel bites. I got a second pint after all. So check it out. It’s a fine place.

**Fish and chips with pretzel bites in a beer cheese dip. Quite delicious**

Oasis Diner Butterscotch Root Beer

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May 062026

When I was at Oasis Diner, and I asked for my refill, they asked if I wanted more of the regular or if I wanted to try the Butterscotch Root Beer. What? That was an option? They have two house root beers? I am not a fan of doing back to back reviews, but I knew I was coming back in December, so I vowed that would be the first place I ate at on my return. Then, in December, I did return, with my youngest brother as well, for he was also works at the company and had business with my customer. I told him of the epic diner and away we went for dinner.

The Body is sweet and full of butterscotch but light on other flavors. You can taste the root beer in there, but barely. The Bite is mild yet not overly smooth. The Head is very tall and foamy. They really excel with that. The Aftertaste is sweet butterscotch.

This is some good butterscotch, but it needs some more root beer. This happens a lot with flavored root beers. They put a lot of that flavor in to overpowering the root beer flavors. It’s still very pleasant to drink and it goes well with their food. Now do I like this better than their original? They are about the same, one’s a decent, albeit rather generic, root beer and the other is a tasty butterscotch yet weak root beer. So what are you in the mood for? Both go well with their delicious cuisine. I had the patty melt this time. It was amazing.

**A patty melt with onion rings and butterscotch root beer. True bliss.**

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