Country Folk Soda is a recent company to pop up. It’s brewed and bottled for Crown Valley Branson, which is a distillery with bistro and there’s a winery there too. The winery is where the Fizzy Izzy comes from. If it seems a bit confusing, its because the websites for this place are various, and the particular website listed on the bottle of this Country Folk doesn’t even work. Alas! The soda line itself says its “an old fashioned soda for downhome country folks.” There are eight flavors and each one has a different folk on it. The root beer’s is a one Bobby Joe. He’s described as “a good ol’ boy who loves to have fun and get rowdy.” He’s also afraid of critters, evidently. I don’t know if this is based on any real person or not. So many questions, so few answers. And I know that your only question is really, “how does this rate as a root beer?” I’m getting to it.
The Body is sweet and spicy and fruity with vanilla, kind of a sarsaparilla fruity. It’s an odd combination but it works surprisingly well. There is a nice zippy Bite from the spices a plenty. The Head is excellent! It’s what a root beer Head should be. The Aftertaste is more of the fruity sarsaparilla and vanilla.
Yeah, um, this is kind of weird as a root beer but I guess fine as a soda. So I wouldn’t drink it if I were in the mood for a root beer, but if you poured it into a glass and didn’t tell me what it was supposed to be, I’d probably enjoy it well enough. See how it rates against other root beers.
Heathen Brewing is a small craft brewery in Vancouver, WA, just across the river from Portland. The brewery says they are “created from the soul of home brewing” I’m not sure what the soul of home brewing is, and why that’s preferable over the soul of craft brewing, but either way, they want to free themselves and all of us from the corporate stronghold on the beer/soda industry. Just like everybody else it seems. More root beers for me to try. Interestingly, though I’d driven past it on several occasions, I didn’t actually know it was there. But it just started in 2014 so I’m to be excused again. Plus the last time I was down there I did get a new brew so it’s not like I’ve been slacking. Anyways, that wonderful 
Bandit Beverages is a soda pop company in Northern Utah. They are focused on old fashioned soda flavors, especially IronPort. IronPort is a soda you can find in Utah, but mostly in soda fountains. They claim to be the only ones who sell bottled IronPort but I swear I’ve seen it bottled somewhere else. And yet, as I search the web (at the time of this writing) I can only find it at Bandit. But I don’t review IronPort so I don’t care that much. I do care about root beer, and no purveyor of old fashioned sodas would be complete if they didn’t have root beer, which Bandit does. They have six other flavors as well. I don’t know why they like bandits so much, but they do. Their tag lines are “Live your life on the run.” and “Drink like a bandit” They even say their website is run by “Bandit Beverage Bandits”. The label with the bull head silhouette makes me think they are going for old-timey Western six-shooter type bandits, which fits their flavor themes well. 
