Mercury Brewing Company - 3 Reviews

When you hear the words “birch beer” you get certain expectations in your head. Images of a root beer that has evolved dance across your mind. It's crisp. It's clean. It's woodsy. One thing that does not enter your thoughts is vanilla. Definitely not crappy vanilla, that is for sure. Yet, that is what is in this bottle. It taste like the company had a vat that was 1/3 filled with birch beer, and when they went to make more they accidentally put in the ingredients for cream soda. In a blind taste test I would guess that this was a store brand cream soda that someone put a little extra baking vanilla into. Would I be wrong, or would Mercury Brewing Company be wrong for claiming this was a birch beer? You be the judge. Actually don't waste your time and money on it.

While 80% of this bottle has a fairly terrible design, the bottom 20% is great. The little dude (who I assume is Hermes) chugging away on a mug of soda is classy all the way. So is the text on the bottom. After looking at it a little longer I'd like to change my stance. 80% terrible was a bit rough. The whole design is actually great minus on thing that ruins it all. The typeface used for the flavor of the soda is horrible. Childishly horrible and it's so big and distracting from an otherwise aesthetically pleasing label.

I've been a huge fan of cola for the past couple of months. I think I slightly burned myself out on ginger and root beer. Cola was waiting in the sidelines and the couch put him in as a started for few games. The thing about cola is that they all taste slightly different, but I never know how to describe the difference (well unless it's a fancy cola like Fentimans makes). This is smoother than your “classic” colas like Coke or Pepsi. It has a full flavor, but nothing about it really sticks out. I finished the bottle two minutes ago and I've already forgotten the subtle nuances of it. I guess that is a sign that while this cola is tasty in the moment, it is ultimately forgettable.

Twenty-one inches, ladies and gentlemen. Twenty-one inches. What is twenty-one inches, you ask? The spaghetti that I bought today. Some of the strands I later discovered were bent in half so the ones that were 100% intact were actually forty-two inches long. You see why I had to buy it, right? Every day people eat boring spaghetti that is only a foot long, and that's for the birds now what I've had this stuff.

To accompany my giant, novelty spaghetti, I had to have a solid drink. You know how some wine compliments cheese and visa-versa? Apparently I think that ginger ale compliments spaghetti because that's what I picked out.

I was let down. The spaghetti was alright. It took forever to cook and although it wasn't bad, it was just long spaghetti. One thing I didn't like after the fact is that it was hollow which made it hard to slurp. I don't typically slurp spaghetti, but the fact that I was going to slurp on strand of spaghetti for up to forty-two inches was something I quickly put and then removed from my bucket list. The ginger ale was dreadfully mediocre. It didn't have any bite and if anything was a bit dry. One did not compliment the other and I made a poor pairing mistake.

If you see that spaghetti anywhere, buy it because it is fun. If you see this pop anywhere, leave it be.