So one day, a few years back, when I was visiting my parents, it was discovered that one of my younger brothers’ friends had lost his cell phone at our house. It had been over a week and the battery was dead. The last person to have seen it was my dad who had found it on the back seat of a car but he couldn’t remember what he did with it afterwards. It was getting very worrisome for the family. I suddenly leaped to my feet and exclaimed, “I’ll find the cell phone, or my name isn’t Mr. McGillicuddy!” (Which it really isn’t) I then quickly ran upstairs, took a Sharpie and drew a mustache on myself, grabbed a magnifying glass and returned to the “scene” and said that Percival C. McGillicuddy, world famous detective, would solve The Case of the Missing Cell Phone (soon to be a major motion picture based off of the children’s book based on a true story). I then melodramatically scoured the house looking for clues, making a mess, and generally entertaining the family. After about 15 minutes I actually FOUND the missing cell phone proving that indeed I was Mr. McGillicuddy. Fast forward to November. I had recently received my doctorate and was scouring the web for new root beers when what did I discover, Dr. McGillicuddy’s root beer. The six packs even had a picture of a mustached gentleman who looked for all intents and purposes like some old fashioned detective. This WAS the root beer that was made for me. It is MY root beer, since I am now Dr. McGillicuddy (ah what a few extra years of grad school do for you.) I ecstatically called my sister to tell her about it since she was one of the most entertained by Mr. McGillicuddy’s original performance. Since it was Christmas time, I figured I’d wait to acquire it until after the holidays. To my pleasant surprise, under the Christmas tree was a 12 pack of Dr. McGillicuddy’s Old-fashioned Root Beer for me Christmas morning. Yay! Even better. Free root beer. I love my family! The bottle says that it’s made with natural herbs, real birch, and imported vanilla. Sounds like a winning combination. It also says “The Original” and if you’ve followed this blog at all you know how I feel about that.
It is a medium Bodied brew that is sweet and creamy. It has a nice vanilla flavor to it that is very delicious. The Bite is very mild. While I like it smooth, there really isn’t any Bite at all and some more spices would be nice. I mean, where are all of those natural herbs? The Head is a proper one, tall and frothy. The Aftertaste is creamy vanilla and birch.
So this is a really good root beer but there really isn’t anything overly exceptional about it. It’s creamy but not super creamy, has a great flavor but nothing extra to put it over the edge. It’s better than average but not quite sipping variety, sadly. See how it rates against other root beers.
So this root beer had a lot of stuff they claimed on the label. It’s an “Extra Rich Draft Style Soda” It’s also “Caffeine Free” though I don’t know why so many root beers make a point of claiming that since almost all root beers are caffeine free. I do like draft style and extra rich, though, I’ve found that it’s about 50% of the root beers are what they claim with regards to taste and texture. But there’s more. It is also “Made with micro filtered naturally pure water” which I suppose means that they use an all natural micro filter or something. Maybe they found a natural micro filter and used that on the water. Surely they couldn’t use a regular micro filter on naturally pure water because if the water was already pure what is the point of micro filtering it again. Maybe the brewers have a little OCD with washing their hands and demand double purity. Either way, there is a lot of text on this label. I guess pictures are overrated. 
That’s right folks, there is an exclamation mark after the word root beer in the title. Unlike the few others that have done this, So Duh! and Dang! That’s Good, the fine people at Big Ben’s are emphasizing that it is Root Beer! They also say “Satisfying!” so they are pretty close to getting carried away with those exclamations. But, when you consider that 