I first heard about the Dublin Bottling Works when news of the lawsuit and the end of Dublin Dr Pepper broke. While I was sympathetic towards the plight of those who loved the drink, would miss the drink, or whose livelihoods depended on the drink, I didn’t like the drink. Or rather, I don’t like Dr Pepper or any of the imitations and never had, so I really couldn’t lament much even though I’ve never tried that particular version of it. But Dublin Bottling Works, being from Texas, won’t let The Man keep them down, and have replaced their Dublin Dr Pepper with Dublin Texas Root Beer. Now this is a very positive thing in my opinion. Replacing I flavor I don’t like with one I do. It’s not like they’re strangers to root beer either, they used to bottle Triple XXX. I’m not sure if they still do, but now they have their own original root beer. Since it was a new product launch, they were kind enough to send me a six pack for review.
The Body is sweet and a little creamy and full of the standard root beer flavors, so much so that it borders being generic tasting. It’s a little on the dark side as well. The Bite is prickly from carbonation but lacking in spice. The Head is tall but fizzes down at an average speed, faster than I feel it should. The Aftertaste is a sort of sticky caramel almost vanilla flavor.
Pretty good, but it doesn’t really have anything extra to really make me swoon. It is a solid brew for a barbeque or a float, but not quite sipping variety. But a good all around root beer like this is sure to be successful enough, even if it’s not my favorite. See how it rates against other root beers.
This is the first and only root beer that I’ve had so far from Hawaii. That begs the question of whether I’ve had a root beer from every state. Without looking back at the 200 odd brews I’ve tried at this point I can definitively say ‘no’. That’s because I have as of yet utterly failed to procure anything from Alaska. It’s up there, but I can’t get it. Someday … But anyhow, Waialua, since it’s from Hawaii, it has a hula girl on the label. Good. If it didn’t there would be problems for sure. There’s some other stuff there like “finest Hawaiian quality” and some squiggly lines at the bottom which may or may not be Japanese or some other Asian script, but who cares, there’s a hula girl and that is all that needs to be looked at. A curious thing about this is the sweetener used. They use “cane sugar” and “Maui natural white cane sugar”, the difference between those two is difficult to grasp. Since Hawaii is a sugar exporting state, I doubt they’re bringing in Brazilian sugar for this brew. So why not just call it all Hawaiian cane sugar? We may never know.
My 200th Root Beer Review!!! After nearly a year of waiting, Bluebird Microcreamery contacted me to let me know that they finally rotated a new root beer into the store and to come and try it. I dutifully complied the next available opportunity and brought my buddy old Zombie Tag buddy with me. Bluebird has imaginatively named this brew Batch 002 Root Beer which saves a ton of money on their menu. For instance the chalkboard that had the menu on it only erased the ‘1’ and replaced it with a ‘2’ leaving their original ‘Batch 00’ … ‘Root Beer’ intact. That’s the sort of efficiency I applaud for a small company. They need to focus all of their energies on brewing instead of naming. Since it’s Batch 002 instead of Batch 2, it begs the question of whether they have over 100 different batches they’re willing to try. That could get interesting for sure and definitely help me keep my weekly reviews coming. 
