For Father’s Day weekend my wife asked me if there was any sort of celebrating I wanted to do. I had two things in mind, fishing and root beer. Luckily for me I knew of a place I could accomplish both (so I thought). Just 15 minutes south of where I live I had discovered the Minnetonka Drive-In in Spring Park, nearly smack in the middle of Lake Minnetonka. They make their own root beer, and surely there’d be some public fishing pier. So we set off to fish and found the only fishing pier on the map (that I could find in Google) was completely inundated with duckweed, lily pads, and other weeds making fishing entirely impossible. But at least we could get to the drive in. The Minnetonka Drive-In was opened in 1961 as a family business. The classic root beer stand is still owned and operated by one of the children of the original founder. He started working there at age 9, washing glass gallon jugs for root beer. I love a family business root beer stand story. They have random mugs to serve their root beer, some unmarked, some A&W, according to the server, they just acquired them wherever they could. There’s lots of picnic tables and they have car service as well. Since I don’t eat in my Model 3, I just ordered inside and went to a table in the shade, since it was a beautiful day.
The Body has that classic root beer flavor with a hint of vanilla. It’s plenty sweet, but it is also just a bit mild, like it could use to be a bit stronger. The Bite is a little spicy while low on the carbonation side. The Head is short and foams away too quickly. The Aftertaste is some sweet vanilla.
It’s overall tasty, but just kind of lacking in all departments, but the core flavors are still really good, so I still give it an above average, high 3. I almost want to go a little higher, but reading my own review doesn’t justify. Three is good from The Root Beer Gourmet after all. The food there is quality. I had their signature Minnetonka Twin burger with onion rings and slaw and cheese curds. I forgot to order bacon with it sadly. Some of the family got some ribs and other fish and chips. It was all really good. I recommend dropping by if you’re in the area.
The Minnetonka Drive In
A Minnetonka Twin burger with onion rings and root beer. Quite the delicious meal.
I take issue with the name of this root beer. I know it’s cliche to call your product world famous, but if the people who’s primary reason for existence have a hard time learning about your product, it isn’t world famous. Small gripe I know, but of all the “world famous” type products I’ve ever heard of, this is probably the most obscure. I heard about it from 
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 
