Eric’s Gourmet Root Beer Blog – Page 7 – The blog of the gourmet root beer site.

Shank’s Root Beer Extract

May 222024

2020 brought many horrible catastrophes such that the world will never be the same. In the midst of these apocalytpic conditions and daily blights, one smaller travesty occurred that went unnoticed by most, the discontinuation of McCormick’s Root Beer extract. This was a very personal blow for me, as for over a decade, McCormick was the root beer extract for my home brew adventures (save dedicated kits). Alas I was doomed wander the deserts of life, devoid of my celebrated homebrew. That is until I went to a family reunion in 2023 and my mom asked me to make a batch of brew for the fam and pulled out a sealed bottle of McCormick. Just what I needed to make things easier for me to find the replacement. After one farewell batch, I returned home, armed with half a bottle of my home brew standard to start some taste comparisons. I got several brands and mathed their recipes to make a single liter to match my soda water recipe. After testing the various batches with the family we aggreed that Shank’s Root Beer Extract provided the closest flavor profile to my standard with a ratio of 2-tsps of Shank’s for each tsp of McCormick in the recipe. Subsequent full batches using my uKeg tasted as good as I remembered them so I can give Shank’s my Seal of Approval as the root beer extract of choice. Now my root beer soirees are back with a vengeance! I’ll update my recipes soon to avoid confusion.

Triple XXX Family Restaurant Root Beer

Root Beer Stand Root Beers No Responses »

May 012024

Last month I set out on a quest to view the total solar eclipse. If you’ve never seen a total solar eclipse, I cannot recommend it enough. Partial eclipses are neat, but really, absolutely, nothing like a total eclipse. Having that proper understanding, yet living outside of the path of totality, I determined that a quest must be had. I pragmatically picked the closest major city I could drive to without having to pay exorbitant hotel fees. And thus I decided on Indianapolis. Once that was decided the next objective, root beer. I stopped in Wisconsin Dells on the first day to visit the National Root Beer Museum. The second day the family and I had the lunch destination of the Triple XXX Family Restaurant. The last official Triple XXX root beer stand in existence and the first Drive In to open in Indiana, in 1931. The place was packed but we got in after a 30 minute wait and ordered food and brews. The place has the classic diner feel you’d expect, with waitresses with big pitchers of root beer filling up anyone in need. And a good thing too because that root beer is great.

The Body is sweet and rich and creamy with a nice vanilla flavor accenting the classic root beer stand taste. I almost want to say there’s some honey in it? The Bite is mild and smooth, could use a bit more spice but I still like it. The Head is medium and frothy. The Aftertaste is a nice sweet vanilla.

It’s that classic drive-in style I love. I know that the bottled version I tried way back when was kind of an inconsistent mess, but every mug (2 and a half of them this trip) I tried was spot on. The food was amazing as well. I tried a really different burger with peanut butter that was featured on Diner’s Drive-Ins and Dives. It was surprisingly good. This place alone would have made the eclipse quest a success. The fact that the weather was basically perfect on eclipse day made this hands down one of the most successful road trips I’ve ever done.

*You can see how packed it is on the inside.*

*My burger (chopped steak) with onion rings and a root beer.*

Bowl & Basket Specialty Root Beer

Bottled Root Beers No Responses »

Apr 032024

Another trade with anthony. Bowl & Basket is a ShopRite brand, which was something I didn’t know about before I went looking. They don’t have Shoprite anywhere I regularly visit so I’m rather out of the loop when it comes to what they offer. They’ve got all sorts of taglines on their label, “Quality Assured” “Small Batch Crafted” “Cane Sugar Soda” and more, which is ironically typical of generic store brands. Each bit of text has a different font and size for some reason, I get not trying to be monotonous but it is a little all over the place. But they at least put it in glass so I can’t really complain because I get to review it.

The Body is sweet with a classic, yet generic flavor. There’s some vanilla and wintergreen though it isn’t very creamy. The Bite is prickly yet mild on spice. The Head is medium tall and fizzes away at about a medium speed. The Aftertaste is a sweet vanilla.

It’s a generic but pleasant and refreshing brew. As expected from a store brand with a bunch of generic taglines. But it isn’t unpleasant and assuming it’s cheaper than the other gourmet root beers, it could be what you get in a pinch if you’re stocking up for an event where you don’t like the people that much? I don’t really know. It was fun enough to drink. See how it rates against other root beers.

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