Wild Bill’s Rocky Mountain Root Beer

 Bottled Root Beers  No Responses »
Feb 292012
 

In an effort to expand my root beer collection in an affordable manner (have you ever ordered one variety online before?) I decided to try trading with other root beer reviewers. I looked first to Anthony of root beer barrel fame because he’s the undisputed king of root beer reviews and also his was the first site I encountered way back in 1998. I’d always looked up to him and since he is on the other coast, we each had access to different regional varieties. After a brief email exchange, the trade arranged. Sadly, i’d given him the wrong zip code since I had recently moved. The package was lost in the mail for over two weeks. Thankfully, he’d gotten a tracking number and I was able to sort it out. The one I was most excited to try was this one. I mean look at it. Bullet holes through the label with a cowboy holding a frosty mug. How can you not like that? It’s also made “with pure cane sugar.” What’s not to love?

It has a very rich and creamy Body. It has an excellent sassafrass flavor, how a root beer should be. The Bite has a good spice tingle as well as some from the carbonation but stays on the smooth side as I like it. The Head is medium height and decently frothy. It fizzes down faster than I prefer but it is sufficient. The Aftertaste is wonderful. Creamy vanilla and a caramel flavor with hints of anise and wintergreen.

This is one quality brew! It’s core flavors are near perfectly proportioned and then its got nice extras from the vanilla and the spices. After the first half a mug, I knew this would be getting a Seal of Approval. Thankfully in this case, I have to drink two bottles, just to make sure. The biggest problem I see with this, it isn’t sold locally. See how it rates against other root beers.




Joe’s Root Beer

 Bottled Root Beers  No Responses »
Feb 222012
 

So awhile back I noticed that I had as many friends on Facebook as I had root beer reviews (not my site but my personal Facebook account). I therefore decided that I shall only have as many friends as root beers tried and if someone wanted to be my friend and I was maxed out, they would just have to find me a new root beer. I then posted that as my status. It got a few likes and one of my more awesome friends (also a stalwart zombie tag comrade and CFH) took it as a personal challenge to earn his already deserved many times over friend status by finding me a new root beer. Since he likes gourmet beer, he kept an eye out at all of specialty beer shops he went to until he declared he had a late Christmas present for me. I was overjoyed when I unwrapped Joe’s Root Beer, another small and obscure microbrewery root beer like Spring Lake Root Beer. This one, however, is all natural instead of having a cocktail of preservatives like the Spring Lake. The ingredients are few but with things like real honey and vanilla, it looked like it could be amazing.

The first thing I noticed when I opened the bottle was that there was kind of a skanky smell to it. Now I don’t judge on smell but it usually portends the flavor. Nevertheless, it has an extremely sweet and full Body with accents of said vanilla and honey. It is crisp and creamy in your mouth without a hint of skanky. Strange. The Bite is sufficient, though, nothing special. The Head is wonderfully tall but only medium frothy so it fizzes down quicker than I would like. The Aftertaste is delicious vanilla and honey.

So this is how root beer is supposed to be. Delicious, a good head, and with that honey and vanilla giving it an extra bit of goodness to push it over the edge of average into premium territory. I would say it’s almost the opposite of the Spring Lake Root Beer, which was a near perfect combination of just about everything, this is beauty in simplicity, like a masterpiece using only two colors. Now the only question I have for my friend, where did you get this again? See how it rates against other root beers.




Glewwe’s Castle Brewery Spring Lake Root Beer

 Bottled Root Beers  9 Responses »
Feb 152012
 

I always like to find an obscure microbrewery root beer, and this brew just screams low volume microbrewery. Conversations with Mr. Glewwe himself verify the infancy and scale of the operation (as does the primative website). The label is black ink on standard 18 lb printer paper that I think they just glue (Glewwe?) on the bottle. It seems to be printed out from an old ink jet as well, classic. The bottle itself is quite different than your standard long neck root beer bottle as well and it isn’t a twist top. It seems that they pay people $1 per six pack of empties and they don’t care about color or shape so they’re doing some good recycling. What a find! The big conundrum for me is that it is called Spring Lake root beer but it is from Prior Lake, MN. So which is it? Spring or Prior, or is it the Prior Spring? Whatever, on to the important stuff.

Wow! What a full and complex Body! There’s lots of wintergreen and creamy vanilla with some birch as well that surfaces after the initial contact with the core root beer flavors. There’s also a subtle honey flavor. It isn’t super sweet though so you can relish the flavors. The Bite is pretty mild but not absent. There’s some spice kick to it but an unbelievably smooth finish from the malto-dextrin. The Head is short and medium froth. It fizzes down quickly but not too quickly to seriously hurt the rating. The Aftertaste is creamy wintergreen with hints of vanilla and honey, though, wintergreen is by far the dominant flavor.

So again, wow! What an amazing and unique brew. It’s like they took a root beer and a birch beer and combined them in a way to get the best of both. The bottle does come with a warning reading “This fine beverage could leave you wanting more. We say ‘Just ask for More.’ Drink and Enjoy” I assume that More is one of their distributors or something, but indeed, this does leave you wanting more. Lest I be all praise it could use a better head and a slightly spicier Bite. It also says “Made with the finest ingredients and patience in accordance to traditional brewing practices.” I believe them on this one. They proved it. I highly doubt that this brew will remain in obscurity much longer, and all’s the better. I look forward to the day I can just pick this up at a specialty foods store near me. See how it rates against other root beers.




 Older Entries  Newer Entries