Nestled in the quiet, green Napa Valley was the Napa Valley Soda Company. They looked at all of their peaceful serenity and bounteous vineyards and thought to themselves that they should harness the power of the valley and make a root beer, and other sodas. They named them after their favorite places in the valley. Calistoga Cola, Oakville Grape, St. Helena Citrus, and Rutherford Root Beer, amongst others. According to them, “Napa Valley has long been synonymous with quality, good taste, and natural beauty. Napa Valley Soda Company has captured this essence in a … natural soda” I found this on a journey to Sacramento. The label features an areal view map of the valley with the cities and geological features after which their sodas are named marked for all to see. Hot air balloons and an airplane survey the tranquility.
The Body is weak, watery, fruity, and tastes kind of like a cola or maybe medicine. There only a very little Head. The Bite, however, is good. The Aftertaste is fruity and medicine like that left a bad taste in my mouth long after I was finished drinking it.
Yuk! This stuff is absolutely horrible. If what they claimed about Napa Valley is true, I don’t know how this root beer slipped by them. Maybe the “essence” captured is like the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones which destroys everything if you remove it from its dwelling place. Whatever the case this is one of the worst brews I’ve ever had. See how it rates against other root beers.
Nestled in the small city of Frederick, MD resides 
One day I decided to expand my Google Maps brewery searches of the region to a larger radius to see just what I could find. I went to the home page of Roslyn Brewing Company and saw that they have a root beer, No. 9 Root Beer to be exact. I was both elated and shocked. Roslyn is five minutes off of the freeway on the way to my parents’ house. I’ve driven past there dozens of times in the past few years and never knew there was gourmet root beer just waiting for me to try. And of course it would be another five months or so before I went to visit my parents again so I couldn’t try it right away. Roslyn itself is a tiny little town that used to be a coal mining town, a rarity in Washington State. It’s all old fashioned looking and their brewery’s taproom only has six stools. Since no minors (only miners?) are permitted, I had to leave the kids outside with a promise that I’d bring the root beer out to them after my review. Sadly this has nothing to do with the Beatles, but rather is named after coal mine No. 9 which supplied coal to the trains going over Snoqualmie Pass.
