Yet another Route 66 themed root beer. What is it with Route 66 that makes people want to name a root beer after it? And why do they insist on naming their root beers after it knowing full well that there are other root beers named after Route 66? I suppose it is an iconic American road, not to mention very long, and root beer is an iconic American food so I see the connection. It’s also plausible that before the days of the internet multiple places on the route could decided to name their root beer after it with no knowledge of the other. Plus, who doesn’t like a good pun? And this bottle is full of the puns. “Get to the ROOT of Route 66” and “Get Your SUGAR Fix On Route 66.” I think I would have enjoyed them better if I hadn’t already heard these puns before or thought of them before. And what is up with their choice capitalizations? The bottle does make the claim of being “The Finest Root Beer on The Route” and since I’ve had several other Route 66 root beers I can definitely put that to the test.
It has a nice full Body that is dark and rooty with wintergreen and a tiny hint of honey coming through. The Body is also pretty creamy from the vanilla. The Bite comes in with cinnamon and a little prickly bit of carbonation but still has a smooth finish. The Head, however, is pathetic. It is very short, less than a centimeter, and fizzes away in seconds. It’s what I like to call the “Two Second Head.” Such a Head actually plagues a lot of root beers but that’s no excuse. The Aftertaste is a bit sticky and creamy with traces of wintergreen and honey.
So wow, delicious, delicious. They sure figured out what great root beer should taste like. I also think they are right, it is the finest root beer of the Route 66 root beers (at least that I’ve had so far). But, I just can’t give a Seal of Approval to a brew with a Two Second Head. Sorry, I can’t. I mean, give it the same height but very frothy and it’d be a 4. Give it a Henry’s Head, and we’re talking 4.5 or 5 out of this. But the Two Second Head, nope sorry. See how it rates against other root beers.
Anyone who lived through the ’80’s is familiar with Judge Wapner. He was iconic. The movie Rain Man even more cemented him into TV immortality with the autistic genius fixated on getting his daily Wapner. I must confess, however, I never once watched The People’s Court. I would wait until it was over everyday and the after school cartoons would come on followed by the original Star Trek. Nevertheless, I got very excited when I saw this, and all I could think about before I reviewed it was Dustin Hoffman counting down the minutes to Wapner. Also, the bottle is a cool smoky color instead of the normal clear or brown which is a nice change for my root beer bottle collection.
My 100th root beer review! Since this is such a milestone I definitely need to try a killer root beer, so I’ve got Killerbrew. Wait, it’s actually Killebrew. Killebrew? What’s a Killebrew? Harmon “Killer” Killebrew (see I wasn’t the only one to do that) is a former baseball player who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1984. According to the website on the bottle, they stopped having a website since it’s one of those generic ad search engine parked sites. As an aside, why do they DO that? I mean, if you’re going to go all the way of putting the website URL on the bottle, can’t you even afford $10 a year to keep the domain name? They give you a free 1 page website with it. You could say something about who you are or how great your root beer is. As you can tell, this has been happening a lot to me lately. Anyways. It seems that the great Killer’s son actually makes this one and not the immortal Hall of Famer himself. I suppose with a name like Killebrew brewing was just too irresistible. 