When I was at Blue Sun getting one of the most perplexing yet delicious brews (Lemon Root Beer?) I also stumbled across this. Mother Road isn’t exactly brand new. It’s Filbert’s except with cane sugar instead of corn syrup. Now those two things do taste different and can make a difference in a root beer. I’m actually quite please with Filbert’s, for rather than change their original product which may anger their old fans, they just made a whole new soda line for the cane sugar recipes. This is even better because people like me have no issue reviewing a new root beer with a new label and name and only one different ingredient, then going back and reviewing again the same root beer even though it changes. Yes, I really want everything in the (root beer) world to just be easily categorized. Anyhow, Mother Road is now the fifth brew with Route 66 in the title that I’ve had, which is probably a record for root beer name themes. Though enough about names and routes and things, let’s move to the root of this review.
The Body has a classic taste with sassafras and wintergreen. There’s a little vanilla in there as well but not as much as I would like. The Bite is okay. You can feel and taste the spice, but it’s nothing exceptional. The Head is medium but foamy and lasts as it should. The Aftertaste is a more sassafras and wintergreen.
This is rather generic and much like Filbert’s, which is to be expected. I like, not love it, but like it better than the original, which was their goal all along? I don’t know. It’s a nice brew, just nothing special. It will hit the spot with a hot dog on a hot summer day which is a win for most people, but I won’t have it in my fridge for special sipping occasions. See how it rates against other root beers.
For the first time in awhile I went out to Blue Sun Soda. I’ve been trying to avoid in-person shopping as much as possible what with the pandemic. Plus it’s sad to me to go up there and not play video games and enjoy a phosphate. Any how, I went back, hunting for a different root beer (review coming next month) and when I asked them if they said they had anything new, they remarked that they’d just started making a lemon root beer. That sounds like a terrible idea to me. If you’ve read this blog much (or my reviews in general) you know my opinion of sour, citrusy, fruity flavors in my root beer. I’ve also not had the best experience with Whistler despite my love for what they do. To set my expectations even lower, when I posted about the new root beer on Facebook, the owner of Whistler commented that he himself didn’t like it but people kept asking for it so he made it. That’s actually hilarious and I told him to not take it bad if I panned it in my review. After all, would you be excited to drink something its own creator has dismissed as weird? But so I found myself filling my mug with a lemon scented brew.
This was my Christmas present for 2020. Props to my diligent wife to be able to track it down, as it had stopped being produced in bottles several months earlier. Yet, she was able to mail order some not just from one of the last distributors, but also get in contact with the makers and get two bottles from them. That’s the sort of thing that makes a gift extra special. This is made by New Creation Soda Works in Georgia. They say it’s “as natural as the government will allow” which I assume is referring to lack of sassafras? I don’t actually know. But yeah! Fight the power, or something. I don’t know why they are Root 42. There is no explanation, so kind of like Olde No. 43 in that respect, which is one number better? I don’t know. Let’s see.