Avery’s Root Beer

 Bottled Root Beers  No Responses »
May 162012
 

The first thing that jumps out at me with this is that it looks bland and cheap. I mean, white and blue on a clear bottle? Even their trade mark “GOLD COIN” is still just a blue outline. They couldn’t even afford some gold ink for their trademark? And then there’s the the logo. “Always Ask for Avery’s” but using only 2 ‘A’s and 2 S’s. I’m all for efficiency and cost cutting, but stacking your words in three lines just so you can use one ridiculously large ‘A’ as the first letter of each word in the stack seems a bit of a stretch. When you consider that they do the same thing with the ‘S’ at the end, it just looks silly. Especially since since the bottom of said ‘S’ doesn’t line up with the rest of the curve for some reason. Oh well, they have been making sodas for over 100 years, so maybe this is their original label and was all the rage at the time. I can only guess.

The Body of this is medium with a sweet caramel flavor. It tastes very generic, though. It is slightly creamy with maybe the tiniest hint of vanilla. The Bite is pretty nonexistent. The Head is the classic “two second Head.” The Aftertaste is a fleeting caramel with a hint of sour fruity.

So as with their label, it seems they’re cutting costs with the actual root beer. It’s like they aren’t even trying to make it good or bad, just add some water to the wholesale extract, chuck in some sugar and call it a day. If I had to use only one word to describe this it would be “meh”. See how it rates against other root beers.




The Cubby Bear Root Beer

 Bottled Root Beers  2 Responses »
May 092012
 

Another one from the Beverages Direct order. Though, this one isn’t even listed on their site, they had to tell me about it. They keep it hidden away, for reasons unknown, and drop it in the occasional mystery soda sampler box. It’s like they’re enticing you to buy random stuff in the hopes of uncovering a hidden gem of obscure root beers or something. Maybe they only reveal it to those who they find truly worthy, and at last I have so merited in their eyes. Whatever the reason, I was able to acquire it. It seems to be the root beer for a restaurant right across the street from Wrigley Field, where people go to party after Cubs games. I wonder if there’s something like that for the Mariners that I’ve been missing out on, but I digress. It’s brewed by Minhas Craft Brewery, which sounds like a Portuguese name to me, even though the website indicates that the immigrants who started the place seemed to be from everywhere but Portugal. Oh well.

This has a medium Body that is rather sweet. It’s moderately creamy with a vanilla flavor but on the whole it’s a little weak. There’s a very light Bite with few spices. The Head is short but rather frothy. The Aftertaste is a light vanilla flavor with the slightest hint of some fruity sour thing that is almost like bubble gum.

Overall this is a decent root beer but really nothing special about it. Maybe at the end of the day, that is why it’s tucked away. I’d still get it with some food after a Cubs game though. See how it rates against other root beers.




Hosmer Mountain Sarsaparilla Root Beer

 Bottled Root Beers  No Responses »
May 022012
 

I like a diverse brand. Any brand that feels they need to make more than one root beer flavor makes the world a better place in my opinion (except for Journey but that’s another story). So I was pleased to find that Hosmer Mountain makes a sarsaparilla root beer as well as their regular. Note that isn’t a sarsaparilla. I don’t review sarsaparillas. They’re not root beers. This is a sarsaparilla root beer, much like Dang! That’s Good makes a butterscotch root beer, and Frostie makes a vanilla root beer. Though, my most recent experience with a sarsaparilla flavored root beer (Hartridge’s) didn’t turn out so well so I wasn’t sure what to expect for this one. Though this one is “bottled in the land of swift moving waters” so has to be good right?

It has a nice creamy Body with a distinct sarsaparilla flavor in addition to the more standard root beer flavors. The brown sugar is noticeable. The Bite is adequate without being overbearing from both spices and carbonation with the overall mouth feel very smooth. The Head is nice and tall. It fizzes down a tad faster than I prefer, but it still lasts plenty long. The Aftertaste is sticky wintergreen and vanilla with hints of sarsaparilla.

Yum! Though it has sarsaparilla, it’s still definitely a root beer and it’s definitely good. It seems that with this one they corrected all of the flaws of their regular root beer and then added that sarsaparilla to change things up a bit. And you know what, variety is nice. I look forward to more of this in the future. See how it rates against other root beers.




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