Root Beer Reviews – Page 109 – Eric’s Gourmet Root Beer Blog

The Groovy Taste Root Beer

Feb 042015

The Groovy Taste Root Beer Bottle A gourmet root beer from Indonesia. It’s always good to have connections, and I have many. This one came from a student of mine (did you know that I’m an affiliate professor?). He was going home over the Christmas break, to Indonesia. I told him to get me some of this, which he promised to bring. And sure enough, he did. Joshua, you are the greatest student ever. This is made by KMI (Kreasi Mas Indah) Beverages. They started in 2008 and are located on the West Java, they have two carbonated soda brands, this root beer and some soda water, also “In addition to beverage product, [they] have personal care division with products Tabashi Bar Soap”. Because why not? Their bottle is small, only 250 ml compared to the standard 355 in this country. The label is simple and classic for a root beer.

The Body is sweet and creamy with a medium strength generic root beer flavor. The Bite is very mild with little spice but adequate carbonation. It’s smooth so I can’t complain much, just for lack of spice. The Head is extremely tall and frothy. It couldn’t really be any better. The Aftertaste is a pleasant vanilla and cane sugar flavor.

Very nice. Very nice indeed. This non-North American root beer tastes like a proper creamy root beer. I’ve never had that before. No strange fruity, weird herbal, or extra sour. Just creamy, sweet root beer goodness. It’s still rather generic, though, if I were in foreign lands and really craving a root beer, this would be good enough, unlike anything else I’ve ever tried from abroad. It also has that extra good Head giving bonus points. See how it rates against other root beers.

Hank’s Premium Root Beer

Bottled Root Beers 1 Response »

Jan 282015

More than any other root beer, Hank’s is the reason that Eric’s Gourmet Root Beer Site exists. You see, the web was young and free hosting was just recently made available at places like Geocities. It was the cool thing to do to make a website. After seriously considering making a website about a combination of three of my favorite things, cheese, Jethro Tull, and Star Craft, (The Eric’s Cheese, Jethro Tull, and Star Craft Site was going to be AWESOME I swear) the idea came to make one about gourmet root beer instead. Since I’d only tried eight different kinds of gourmet root beer (there wasn’t a lot of variety in a town of 5,000 people) at that point I figured I needed to expand a bit. I found Hank’s online and asked my Mom to order it for me. I had a whole $15. She called and they said that they’d never sent anything to Washington State before and they figured it’d be very expensive. She said she’d have to call back because she was buying it for her son who was making a website but he didn’t have much money. Then they decided that since it was for a website, and thus free publicity, they’d send a whole case as a free sample. How very generous. Also, it put a lot of expectation on me to actually follow through and make the website since I was paid in advance as it were. And thus Eric’s Gourmet Root Beer Site was born.

This is sooo goooood! It has a wonderfully full Body that is rich and creamy and a nice spicy Bite. The Head is almost perfect. Aftertaste is very pleasant.

As you can tell, I really liked it then (I’ve kept what I originally wrote back in 1998). It put me in quite an enigma because at the time it was the best brew I’d ever had, but I hadn’t had very many. I put it at 4.5 kegs and after many years I revisited it in my Ultimate Root Beer Showdown and realized that after nearly 150 root beers, it was still the best. But many years later, I realized that was because they had slightly changed their recipe and their name. So I’m keeping this version where it was and elevating their more recent iteration, acknowledging their slight tweak was just enough. See how it rates against other root beers.

Windy City Soda Root Beer

Bottled Root Beers No Responses »

Jan 212015

A bottle of Windy City Soda Root Beer This brew had been discontinued before I ever learned about it. I was left to mourn another root beer that would never be mine. Then the great Jon came a trading. He had several discontinued brands that were still in good condition. Being a true gentleman and ethical trading partner. He sent some right away without getting petty nor impatient over the details. This is another made in Chicago/themed after Chicago brew. I’ve been seeing those pop up a lot lately. I don’t know what it is about the city that inspires people to name things after it, but I dare say it is the most common city to be found on a root beer bottle. The label is rather plain, with brown hues and a skyline silhouette. It’s almost too plain. I could see this bottle blending into the background on a shelf with other brands.

The Body is sweet with some vanilla and caramel hints but is also a tad bland. The Bite is sharp and spicy. The Head is short yet frothy. The Aftertaste is very light vanilla. It’s pretty good and also refreshing.

Not a bad brew. But pretty generic in the not-a-bad-brew category. There really isn’t a lot to differentiate it from other root beers, plus it’s a tad bland. Maybe if it was completely fresh I would like it more, but I don’t think so. It is sad that they failed. There are worse brews that bear the Chicago name that are still going strong. See how it rates against other root beers.

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