When I first relaunched the site and started actively started trading for new root beers with other reviewers, anthony asked if I wanted some nasty Amish home brew. I told him that as long as it was bottled with a label on the bottle I’d love it. He sent some but it was lost in the mail for two weeks due to an erroneous zip code. I had just moved and messed up my address. Since it was yeast carbonated, the bottles had leaked over half of their contents out due to over carbonation, though luckily they were in plastic bags and it didn’t ruin the rest of the root beer bottles in that trade. I had to wait another two years before he tried sending it again. This time we made sure the address was right, and he insulated the package and put ice packs in it. Three days later it came all wet and soggy. The postal workers never stamped fragile on the package so it was tossed around and one of the three bottles was smashed, which tore the plastic bag, leaking root beer everywhere. I thought the others leaked too, but after washing them, drying them, and inspecting, I was relieved to find they were intact. I was even able to mostly save the label on one for my collection. I’m not sure what R & B stand for, so I’m guessing it’s Root and Beer. I’m sure it’s a good little produce market that sells carrots, turnips, beets, sweet potatoes, and this brew.
The Body is yeasty, sour, fruity, and weak in the normal root beer flavor department. There’s a sour acidic type of carbonation Bite that isn’t very pleasant. The Head is medium tall but fizzes away very quickly. The Aftertaste is sour yeastiness.
So, light on root beer, high on sour yeast. You can guess how I feel about that. This isn’t the nastiest Amish home brew I’ve tried (I’m looking at you Olde Heritage) but it’s definitely not what you want when you need a good root beer. See how it rates against other root beers.
Part 2 of my Eleven City Diner reviews. How many times have I found a restaurant with two different flavors of house root beer? ZERO! That’s how many. That’s how amazingly epic this place is. Additionally their food is very amazing, as my previous meal demonstrated, but in addition to classics, they also have some very original stuff as well. So I was back for lunch two days later with blonde brews on my mind. To be honest I’ve only heard of one other blonde root beer before so I had no idea what to expect.
I was in Chicago for the IEEE T&D Conference and Expo and needed to find some new root beer. Since Chicago probably has more brands of gourmet root beer coming out of it than any other city I can think of, I was sure there had to be at least something. I was looking for 1919 but I couldn’t seem to find anyplace close by. I asked the hotel concierge and he began to search after learning that Goose Island was something I could get bottled. He searched and called places and finally found Eleven City Diner, which is one of their recommended spots anyways and found that they had not one, but two house root beers, a classic and a blonde. I immediately set on foot to get my root beer. And it started to snow, and I was only wearing a very flimsy jacket because it had been sunny and warm in Seattle the day I left. Soon it was snowing and blowing and I still had 15 minutes to walk. But root beer is worth the pain. Eleven City Diner itself is an old Jewish Deli that specializes in cured meats – corned beef and pastrami. They barrel age their root beer extracts and use real cane sugar and Madagascar vanilla. They have an awesome root beer soda mixer/dispenser that’s ice cube chilled and dispenses both flavors. I decided to start with the classic.
