Nov 292017
 

Best Health's Root Beer Bottle Another one that I’d been after for a long time. I was afraid I’d never get it, but then anthony saved the day, as he often does. The Brooklyn Bottling Company, who makes this, has been around since 1937 but I’m not sure if this root beer has been around that long. They do go for that old fashioned soda fountain look with their labeling. The label itself is painted on the bottle, which you don’t see often and makes me happy because it will last longer in my collection and it doesn’t get ruined with water like those paper labels. It’s naturally flavored, which you would expect from something with the name Best Health’s, but the name doesn’t stop them from using sodium benzoate, so maybe there’s a Bester, er Bestester? Health’s out there…

The Body is rich and full. There’re caramel and vanilla flavors as well as sort of a creamy cotton candy taste. It’s strange but not bad. The Bite is mild and not noteworthy. The Head is medium but fizzes down quickly. The Aftertaste is some wintergreen and more of that creamy candy with a hint of vanilla.

This is pretty good. I like it but the Head could be better and then it doesn’t quite taste right. Not anything bad or wrong, but the flavor combinations just don’t meld the way I feel a proper brew should. I can’t really explain it but you’ll know what I mean when you drink it. See how it rates against other root beers.

Three and a half kegs




Nov 222017
 

ramblinmaple_big The third flavor of Ramblin’ root beer, the maple root beer. I got curious, with all of these flavors of root beer, just what was the most popular. It turns out butterscotch is. As of the time of this writing (October 2016) I’ve had 8 butterscotch root beers, 6 vanilla root beers, 3 sarsaparilla root beers, just 2 maple root beers, 1 birch root beer, and 1 pumpkin spice root beer. How’s that for some stats? So a maple isn’t a popular name for a root beer, but many more root beers have maple syrup in them, so it’s probably closer to butterscotch in flavor popularity though much lower in the naming. As I said last time I got this in a mixed case with the butterscotch flavor. I’d like to point out that though Ramblin’ is a resurrected brand, these two flavors are new to it, so the folks at Monarch are adding their own personal twists on revived classics. Very nice. Well I think I’ve rambled on long enough, to the review!

The Body is rich with maple and vanilla on the initial contact, but then is rather hollow after that. So much so that I can’t find any of the other typical root beer flavors. The Bite is pretty mild but it isn’t very smooth either. The Head is very nice and tall and foamy. The Aftertaste is lovely maple with some vanilla notes.

This is pretty good, but not all there. They suffer from the same fate as many others, who think you can just add in some special flavor and neglect the rest of the root beer. At least they didn’t dump in overpowering amounts of extract like they did with the butterscotch. See how it rates against other root beers.

Three and a half kegs




Nov 152017
 

Ramblin' Butterscotch Root Beer Bottle I always like it when a soda company makes more than one flavor of root beer. It happens a lot more lately and is a sign of the changing times. People care about root beer more and more, and they want even more variety in that most diverse of beverages. This is great for yours truly. After just a few years of being resurrected by Monarch Beverages, Ramblin’ has launched this and another flavor of root beer, maple (review coming soon). I remember how butterscotch root beers were such a rarity, now they’re everywhere. Another sign of the changing times. The label has an orange butterscotch coloring to it with some butterscotch discs on it as well, just so you know that this is the butterscotch one. I ordered a mixed case of this and the maple on their very first production run so I could be one of the first to try it. Then I queued this review for a year so I probably should have just waited until it showed up locally. Oh well, you never know if it will show up locally (but this time it totally did).

The Body is overwhelming with the flavor of butterscotch extract. There’s some traditional root beer flavors in there, but they are overpowered by an alcoholic extract flavor seething with butterscotch. The Bite is a sharp burn, like if you drink straight flavor extracts. The Head is tall and frothy. It doesn’t last forever but it lasts a long time. The Aftertaste is more butterscotch extract. It’s so strong it doesn’t taste like butterscotch.

Gah, what have they done? Did they make a mistake in their measurements and dump several times more butterscotch extract in? Did an open bottle of extract accidentally get knocked into the vat? Or do they really like it this way? I can’t stress enough that it tastes overwhelmingly like butterscotch extract, not butterscotch flavor. If you’ve ever put way too much extract in a recipe, you know what I’m talking about. If they cut the extract in half it could be good, but as it stands, stay away from this. See how it rates against other root beers.

2 out of 5 root beer kegs