Perhaps it was Rocket Fizz that spurred the creation of this brew. They made Kiss Army Root Beer after all. And that may have made Gene Simmons, one of the founders of Kiss, think to himself, I want some of that sweet soda money pie. And so MoneyBag soda was born? I don’t know. I can’t honestly say I know anything about Gene Simmons, or really Kiss other than the long tongues and makeup and they were referenced in Happy Gilmore and an episode of Scooby Doo where Shaggy wanted to get to a Kiss concert… Yeah um, I’m not the right person to be writing this review. I can do it no justice. Forgive me Kiss fans, I’m not worthy. But anyhow, this root beer was born, it exists, it’s making Gene Simmons lots of MoneyBags, and it happened to show up at a local grocery store so I bought it and drank it.
The Body is minty and creamy with a nice vanilla flavor featuring prominently. There’s also the tiniest hint of licorice and some bitter notes from the wintergreen. The Bite is a little harsh from carbonation but average from spices. The Head is very tall and foamy. It lingers and it basically a prime example of a proper root beer Head. The Aftertaste is a little too bitter, with wintergreen and vanilla in there as well.
It’s a decent brew, but nothing special, and a little too bitter. I wonder if its flavor is some sort of representation of Kiss and their music? I only know one of their songs, really, Rock’n Roll All Night, which I didn’t even know was a Kiss song till I Googled it right as I was writing this paragraph, and so I can’t really say. Oh well, it’s still worth drinking. See how it rates against other root beers.
On New Year’s Day the weather was beautiful and it hadn’t snowed for a few days so I thought I’d take a scenic drive with the family. I figured something the drove along the Mississippi River would be nice, and I knew that in the city of Red Wing, there was a brewery that also made their own root beer. So after a nice drive on the Wisconsin side of the river, we found ourselves at the little Red Wing Brewery. The city of Red Wing actually has a storied past with breweries, but they all were closed by the 1950s. The Red Wing Brewery is the first to open there since 1951. Now the root beer is called Good Old Zimmie’s and this time I actually had the presence of mind to ask why it was called this. I was told that they looked through the long history of Red Wing beers and chose from those names. Good Old Zimmie’s was the name of some old brew. Go figure. 
Canadian Barq’s! That’s right, they make it different in Canada. I don’t know why, but they do. Not only do they only use pure cane sugar, but they use a little less sugar in total, and there’s less sodium. The nutritional information is therefore different, as the ingredients, slightly. And they even had the decency to call it something different, Crafted Soda. That’s not what we call it down here. So that means I can 