Eric’s Gourmet Root Beer Blog – Page 163 – The blog of the gourmet root beer site.

Brownie Caramel Cream Root Beer

Mar 132013

This was a root beer I was not excited at all to drink. While a caramel cream root beer is very intriguing, a brownie caramel cream root beer sounds terrible. I just can’t imagine putting chocolate in root beer and having it come out in any way good. I suppose Brownie might just be the name and have nothing to do with the flavor, but there’s a lot more wrong with this. There’s the Peter Pan wannabe ordering you to “Drink” his pixie concoction all framed on a what looks like a Chinese knockoff Pepsi logo. Is that even legal? Aren’t they violating at least two trademarks with that? Perhaps side text on the bottle gives some explanation. “With a Sprite on the label, it’s easy to see how this mischievous and delicious blend of root beer & caramel came about” … What? No, no, NO! That makes no sense at all, and now they’ve gone and violated a third trademark. Can it get any worse? “CONTAINS MILK” … Words fail me.

The Body has a very rich sassafras flavor that gives way to luscious caramel and cream that thankfully tastes nothing like brownies. It’s absolutely delicious. There is a prickly carbonation Bite but not much in the spice department, rather, it is nice and smooth. The Head is medium height but fizzes away in less than a minute unfortunately. The Aftertaste is more rich caramel and cream that lasts just long enough to make you want more but not so long as to be annoying when you can’t get it.

Well, I wasn’t prepared for that. I really love this flavor. I love creamy caramel flavored root beers and this takes it to a whole new level. You can really get lost in that caramel and never want to come back. It seems that the milk comes from real cream, but it works like I’d never imagined. Sweet and rich and smooth and lovely. This blew me away. The Head is disappointing but just barely good enough. I guess you can’t judge a root beer by it’s label. See how it rates against other root beers.

Towne Club Root Beer

Bottled Root Beers 2 Responses »

Mar 062013

Another root beer found recently at The Root Beer Store. This one has a unique bottle shape with a label that doesn’t give me much to write about other than the fact that they refuse to capitalize any letters for reasons unknown. It kind of reminds me of a certain root beer reviewer. Nevertheless, I will not fall for their poor grammar and you can see that I’ve capitalized their name in the title of this post. Other than that, I like the label, unnecessary ‘e’ and all. It seems that this soda is popular in the poorer neighborhoods of Detroit, a.k.a ALL neighborhoods of Detroit, where the company started in the mid 1960s. It is impressive that though their sales declined dramatically in the 1980s, they never quit so this has been around continuously since then.

It has a sweet medium Body where the generic root beer flavor slowly morphs into tasting like Red Vines. It is most curious. There is a little Bite, though it’s hardly worth mentioning. The Head is medium height but fizzes down quickly. The Aftertaste is a light Red Vines flavor.

Huh, Red Vines root beer. I can honestly say that I’ve never encountered that before. I’m not sure if this should be categorized with other candy flavored root beers (the butterscotch ones) or if it’s just a byproduct of their ingredients. Maybe when they were formulating it someone told them that you put licorice in root beer and they went to the store but bought red licorice by mistake and they just went with it. Whatever the reason, it’s actually pretty decent and not too far outside of the “normal” root beer spectrum. I’d have it again, occasionally. See how it rates against other root beers.

Anchor Ginger Root Beer

Bottled Root Beers No Responses »

Feb 272013

Anchor Root Beer Bottle Arr matey, another sailing themed root beer. But this is beyond the standard pirate root beers, of which there are many, this is a “tribute to all the Sea Dogs and Scallywags looking for adventure on the seas.” I doubt there are many cooler flavor texts on root beer bottles. The label is one of the best mixes of classy and awesome imaginable. It’s not too busy. A large anchor with a schooner watermark in the background with everything centered around the anchor. It’s also nice to find a ginger root beer as I like to see some innovation in the root beer world. All in all this has the makings of greatness, and it doesn’t disappoint.

The Body starts out with a full ginger flavor like a good ginger ale. This masks out all other flavors initially. The ginger slowly gives way to a nice creamy root beer flavor that is very nice. The Bite is strong from the ginger and an average carbonation fizz, but doesn’t burn by any means and actually goes down rather smooth in the end. The Head is terrible, sadly. It’s barely better than the Two Second Head, probably more like a five second Head. Tragic. The Aftertaste is a caramely vanilla flavor with ginger hints that lasts the right amount of time.

This is an excellent tasting brew. I like a good ginger ale and love the fact that they managed to successfully incorporate that strong ginger flavor without losing any of the good root beer-ness, which is often a problem with the ‘flavored’ root beer varieties. Sadly, the Head is terrible. It’s bad enough to keep it from getting a Seal of Approval, which is really a shame. But it will be a good brew to take on your next nautical voyage to wash down the catch of the day. See how it rates against other root beers.

Older Entries Newer Entries