Levis is an old root beer. From back way in 1895. It was originally served at a marble soda fountain at a place called Levis, that served hot dogs and fish cakes and what not. After seeing the success of Hires’ brew, Levis made his root beer even better with a bold flavor, if the back of the bottle is to be believed. The hot dog stand is actually still there and has been continuously operating since its inception. It doesn’t say when the root beer started to be bottled, but currently the bottled version is owned and distributed by Amazing Beverages. The back of the bottle claims that it’s bottled with the same flavor used for almost 100 years, but they can’t be using exactly the same recipe because they only use part sugar and part sucralose. It still has enough sugar for me to consider it not a diet (25g) but it kind of is some strange hybrid type almost. I can’t imagine that does anything to improve the flavor. It does only have 100 calories per bottle which was probably the reason for the sugar dial down. To appeal to some strange health conscious subset of the population.
The Body is weak with a prominent sour and icky fake sugar taste. Why did they put sucralose in it instead of another 15g of sugar? The Bite is a bit harsh from carbonation and sour. The Head is medium-tall and lingers an average amount of time. It’s not super foamy but it’s okay. The Aftertaste is an icky sucralose flavor that coats my teeth and doesn’t go away.
This stuff is bad, and is what happens when somebody wants to reduce the calories in their root beer a little bit. I mean really, do you think anyone going for a bottle of soda is going to not get it because it has another 40 calories? Has there ever been anyone, in the history of the world, who thinks that the fake sweetener flavor is somehow better than real sugar? I will give them the fact that despite the fake sugar detraction, it does taste old-school-soda-fountiany. See how it rates against other root beers.
So last weekend I was driving home to visit my parents for turkey hunting and Easter festivities and my low oil light came on and my children were simultaneously complaining about being hungry. We had to stop somewhere soon and then I remembered that a new brewery had opened on the top of Snoqualmie Pass. What a perfect opportunity/excuse to stop by. I’m not sure when Dru Bru Brewery opened, but it wasn’t much earlier than 2016 or I would have found it on earlier root beer searches. They have a very comfy and friendly tap room but no restaurant. They let you bring in outside food or order some from the local restaurants. There’s also a few snack items that can be ordered. One nice thing is that they let you order 5 ounce root beers, which is great for the kids. We got a round of brews and some sort of cured meat thingy and I set to work reviewing. 
I like it when I get to taste resurrected brands. Especially if they came from a major company. Ramblin’ was originally introduced in 1979 by none other than The Coca-Cola Company. In the 80’s they even had an ad for it with a cameo by a young Sarah Jessica Parker. Additionally, this brew would often cause classic rock lovers to spontaneously break into either Led Zeppelin or Allman Brothers Band songs (I’m sure it did … I did when I was drinking it…). Yet despite that, sales slowed, and in 1995 Coke decided to Ramble On, as it were, to another root beer, and bought Barq’s, because it had bite, and 
