Last fortnight I was in Dallas for DistruTECH and DERMS in a little trip I like to call, DERMS Does Dallas… anyways, I was there and therefore I was searching for brews. I found several, but sadly, most were closed on the Sunday when I arrived, yet I wouldn’t be stopped since I had other days. So on Wednesday, after the show was over, I took off with a coworker and a customer (see me being a good employee) to Dairy-Ette Drive-In, Root Beer, Hamburgers. This is a third generation family owned drive-in, that originally opened in 1956. You know it’s got to be good if it’s still around. They make their own root beer which they serve from a red root beer keg, that says “Coca-Cola” on it. I don’t know why. I don’t know why it’s called Dairy-Ette either. But it’s a beautiful little place hiding on a corner in North Dallas.
The Body is smooth, amazingly smooth, so smooth I can’t even properly describe the liquid silk that is the Body of this root beer. There’s a classic flavor with lots of vanilla. It’s a simple, yet elegant taste. The Bite is small, a little spice but so so smooth. The Head is beautiful. So frothy and crazy tall if they let it. It lasts nearly forever, and you know how that foam feels in your mouth? Smooooth. The Aftertaste is sweet, smooth vanilla that lasts the perfect amount of time.
Okay, remember how last month I raved about some cream soda being smooth. Well that might as well be sandpaper compared to this. Seriously. I can’t remember a brew so silky smooth. With a wonderful classic flavor too, this is top notch. It could be a little spicier with a little more depth, but this is still one of the best root beers I’ve reviewed in quite awhile. The food there is just as amazing as their root beer. This place is worth its own pilgrimage.
Back in July I took a road trip down to Okoboji, IA in part because I’ve never been down there and in part because I had learned about The Nutty Bar Stand. The Nutty Bar Stand is a sweet shop/concession stand in Arnolds Park, the oldest amusement park west of the Mississippi river. Arnolds Park has all of the rides you’d expect albeit it they are rather smaller and old. But it’s still good fun and the lines were short and the children and I had a blast running around to different rides until it started raining on us. It was lunchtime anyways so we took a break and then went for dessert at The Nutty Bar Stand. They serve two primary things there. Nutty bars, which are a cube of vanilla ice cream dipped in chocolate and then rolled in peanuts, and frosty mugs of root beer, for only $1 a mug. Now that I like! Especially because it’s good root beer.
Back in June I took a day off to make another small three day Minnesota road trip. Plan was Duluth to Ely and back. Since I’d already been root beer hunting in Duluth, I wasn’t planning on finding anything. Yet, the day before I tried “root beer duluth”s into Google and found a drive in called A & Dubs. They seemed to have root beer, so I gave them a call and they said yes, they make there own. Well, I knew where I was headed for dinner then. The little drive in was originally an A&W some 60 years ago but they decided not to renew the franchise at some point and just strike out on their own, with their own root beer recipe. They changed the name to A & Dubs, which is about the least creative thing to name your former A&W since the drive in named “The Drive In”. It’s a proper drive in with car service and 3 booths inside (closed sadly for Covid) and two picnic tables outside and offers the standard drive-in fare of burgers, dogs, chicken baskets and the like. Their sign says “Home of the Power Platter” which is a burger root beer combo meal. So that’s what I got. 
