Root Beer (109 reviews)
Killebrew Old Fashioned Root Beer
“And when we hit the twin cities, I didn't know that much about it. I knew Mary Tyler Moore and I knew Profane Existence.”
Dear Craig Finn, You forgot about your beloved Minnesota Twins and their beloved Harmon Killebrew. I mean you even wrote a song about them with The Baseball Project. Man, that must have been awesome to work with Peter Buck. Oh you also forgot about all of the “crust lords” that reign supreme in your city.
Well Mr. Finn I’m here to remind you with this review of Killebrew root beer. Harmon’s son makes it and it’s a homage to his father. First off, this is the first root beer that I have ever drunk that comes in a resealable aluminum bottle. It’s weird, but I like that I can reseal it without having to deal with plastic. The root beer itself is sweetened with “pure Minnesota honey,” which is nice, but for some reason they also use HFCS, which seems unnecessary. The honey gives it a nice taste that you don’t get in everyday root beer. There is something about it that tastes slightly medicinal in the way that Moxie does. It’s also very dark tasting. I can’t help but think that this would taste a lot better in a glass bottle. You know, the way that root beer was meant to be served.
As a final note I would like to point out that this would make a great float if you mixed it with some vanilla ice cream. Maybe that’s just because I’ve consumed way more ice cream in the past two weeks than any human should.
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- High Fructose Corn Syrup
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 4/10/2013
- Comments
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Mug Root Beer
It’s been some time since I’ve had an “everyday” root beer. That kind of hurts my head, since in the past I used to consume it by the bucket. Oh man, I wish there was a place that served root beer in buckets. You know, like those bars that serve drinks out of fish bowls or whatever weird receptacle they have. Anyway, when I’ve had a root beer in recent times it’s been something more on the fancy side of the root.
With the first couple sips I thought to myself, “Self, I really miss this. It’s simple, but it tastes great. It’s a classic.” Then about halfway through the bottle I started to realize how thick the soda was, due to the HFCS sweetener. In fact I started to get in my head that the whole thing tastes like carbonated syrup. I still enjoyed it, but not with as much vigor as I had the first half. In my mind there is nothing wrong with Mug. Chances are that when you think of root beer it’s more of this variety than a microbrewed one or anything fancy like that. It’s a completely average root beer, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
- Website
- http://www.mugrootbeer.com
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- High Fructose Corn Syrup
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 3/20/2013
- Comments
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A&W Ten Root Beer
Root beer is kids beer. Whenever parents are around drinking beer, the kids get root beer. "No, son. You can't have a beer but you can have a root beer." It has the "beer" in the title so they're fine. I think that I would like to meet a person who things that root beer doesn't taste better than beer, though. I mean beer is an acquired taste since it is bitter. Root beer? Sweet, bold, dark, and has fun ingredients that can rival "good" beers. Some have licorice, honey, and vanilla just like their alcoholic cousin "real beer."
One step beyond is this. It's got vanilla like A&W has but this is low calorie version of the regular one that you have grown up to love. It doesn't have a diet taste, which is the best part about it. I mean, if I had the calorie-full one next to the calorie-less one, I could probably tell but who's doing that? Not me, and I consider myself a professional. It's a self-appointed position that involves no perks, benefits, or fancy badges. It's nice to have a diet that doesn't taste gross and with the primary demo being a man, this rules. Men, you're fine. I've done the extensive research of drinking something for you so you don't have to. You're welcome. I do accept paper checks although hot, sweaty cash is better, as long as it's not actually sweaty. I worked in retail and it happens. Women coming in with money in their boobular area and hand it to me to buy belly button rings. Grozz. Please stop doing that, women. It's totally grozz.
- Website
- http://www.rootbeer.com
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- High Fructose Corn Syrup
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Mike Literman on 2/19/2013
- Comments
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Brooklyn Soda Works Root Beer
My stars. As you may or may not know, I am in Brooklyn. I have wanted to try Brooklyn Soda Works but it's not available in Buffalo and it's not really ship friendly. Well you can't duck me for long because I came to you and you can't escape your own home.
I went to a bar in the middle of the day filled with day drinking women with their kids and ordered a root beer. Upon delivery, I made my friend drink it first because it couldn't look more like beer. Honestly, it could and might play as beer's stunt double in Spike Lee films.
This root beer was fantastic. It was almost like a sarsaparilla because it was so sweet but every sip was a treat. It was a dark flavor that was just super bold and just a treat.
Now this isn't something that we would normally review but there are enough people in the Brooklyn/Manhattan area and enough distribution centers that people can enjoy this. Please, enjoy this. Please.
- Website
- Http://www.brooklynsodaworks.com
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Not Listed
- Categories
- Root Beer
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Mike Literman on 2/9/2013
- Comments
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Berghoff Root Beer
Vanilla, Licorice, Cinnamon, Clove, Spice, Pep, Pizzazz...Some root beers have these ingredients in them. They excel and are the ones that we, self-proclaimed professionals, enjoy the most. Root Beer is a dime a dozen, like a cola, but an exceptional one comes few and far between. We are always on the lookout for the next great drink. Most of the time we come up short. It's not a loss because we have to weed through stuff to get to the gems and we have found some in all categories of drink.
This one will be dumped in the "the rest" bucket. It tastes like root beer and nothing else. I know, if you are drinking a root beer you want it to taste like a root beer but who is happy with a C? Yeah, I passed, what more do you want from me? It might and probably is the "diet" of this drink that makes it just an average thing. The sucralose really takes a dump on the potential of this drink, figuratively speaking. Sucralose has no digestive system and still sucks without it.
- Website
- http://www.berghoff.com/
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Sucralose
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Mike Literman on 1/16/2013
- Comments
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Krisda Natural Soda Root Beer
We’re all in agreement that root beer (and it’s like brethren) is the best soda out there, right? I could drink the stuff all day long. Sure I would feel like garbage, weigh a couple hundred pounds more and my teeth would fall out of my head as I talked, but I would have a happy palate doing it.
I hope it’s safe to assume that we all also think that “normal” diet pop is grozzzzzz. Some people say you just have to get used to it. I say I could also get used to drinking glasses on vinegar on a daily bases, but I’m sure as hell not going to do that.
So here we are with a flavor that is amongst the best and a version that is amongst the worst. Traditionally when these two things are combined the diet overpowers the greatness of the root beer, and it just tastes like a diet soda. They all taste more similar than they do their individual flavors. Krisda stood up and said “No world, I will not accept that! I will create a diet root beer that actually tastes more like root beer than diet and the world will love me for it!” Apparently Krisda realized that the solution was just to raise the black licorice content of the soda. This tastes so much like the good version of licorice (not the black jelly bean version) that it’s ridiculous. It’s more licorice that root beer. I’ll tell you what though. The combo of that and using stevia as a sweetener creates the best diet root beer I have ever tasted. For a second you can tell that it’s diet, but then that licorice aftertaste kicks in and erases your zero calorie memories.
- Website
- http://www.krisdasweetener.com
- Country
- Canada
- Sweetener
- Erythritol
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 12/29/2012
- Comments
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Yacht Club Root Beer
Yes, I am here as a guest of the Underhills. Mr Underhill said to just apply any charges I accrue to their account. With that being said I will be needing the largest yacht you have available, a whole mess of towels, some scuba gear, a barrel of peanut butter filler pretzels, a case of ball bearings, a couple of bottles of your finest root beer, a bloody mary a steak sandwich, and a steak sandwich. No you may not inquire what I need all of these items for. The Underhills had told me that this club was all about digression and the privacy of their guests. I certainly hope that they were not wrong.
Yes, I understand it may take a short bit of time to get all of those items together. I will be waiting down by the dock. Say, can I get one of those root beers and a steak sandwich while I wait?
Well twenty minutes sure was a long time for you to gather everything I needed. I will most certainly have a talk with the Underhills about the promptness of this club. I will say the root beer was quite delicious though, and those seagulls certainly seemed to enjoy the steak sandwich. I’m a vegetarian you know, so I don’t put death into my mouth. Those birds though, they went crazy for it, so their compliments to the chef. About that root beer though, I saw that it was called Yacht Club, is that this clubs own brand? Oh no, it’s a company that caters to all yachting aficionados? Oh it’s actually made by Yachting Aficionados magazine? Who’d have known? Well my compliments to that rag for finally doing something right for once. I had expected a regular, run of the mill root beer, but what your crew is serving is top notch. I see that the ingredients list it as just “root beer flavor,” but you can really taste the high concentration of wintergreen and licorice without them being distracting. There’s a nice hint of vanilla in there as well. I also see that it’s made with Artesian water. You got lucky with that one friend. I solely drink water from Artesia. If water from anywhere else on this planet had passed over my lips you would be in for a world of hurt.
How about this? You help me load all of this stuff onto the yacht, go grab me another case of this brew and I won’t mention any of these negative aspects of this little adventure to the Underhills. You wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of a tongue lashing from that group, I can tell you that.
- Website
- http://www.yachtclubsoda.com
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Pure Cane Sugar
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 12/19/2012
- Comments
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Bawls Guarana Root Beer
Now I know we previously reviewed the Bawls G33K B33R, but in the name of beverage science I had to give this a try since they dropped the 1337 speak and simply named this "root beer". Were they confusing people? Did they finally realize talking in numbers was kinda lame? Or did they completely change the formula and make it 100% less geeky?
Unfortunately a representative for Bawls could not be reached to comment on this matter. Ok, to be honest I didn't try. But I can comment on the last question: the taste. Is it different? Not at all. It's still delicious. Am I glad they changed the name on the bottle? Meh. I could care less really. I wasn't bothered by the 12 year old gamer talk on the bottle. What I would have loved to been a fly on the wall for is the meeting(s) where they discussed whether to keep the bottles as "G33K B33R" or change them to the traditional and less annoying "root beer". Maybe someday companies like Bawls will conference us in for our "expert" opinions.
- Website
- http://www.bawls.com/
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- High Fructose Corn Syrup
- Categories
- Energy Drink, Root Beer, Soda Pop
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Derek Neuland on 11/21/2012
- Comments
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Saint Arnold Handcrafted Root Beer
In my travels to the wonderful town of Austin, Texas, I found this bottle left in a co-op by Saint Arnold himself. It was an unexpected gift, but it was much appreciated for I hadn't had a new root beer in quite some time. Given that it is "old fashioned", I expected it to have a strong bite and rooty taste to it. On the contrary, it had a nice smooth vanilla taste to it. Saint Arnold brews a hell of a root beer and maybe some day he will leave a bottle somewhere else I'll be traveling.
- Website
- http://www.saintarnold.com/
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Cane Sugar
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Derek Neuland on 11/7/2012
- Comments
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Polar Premium Root Beer
Deep in the not so frozen tundra of Worcester, MA there is a factory where the locals have imprisoned a team of polar bears and they force them to make soda pop. They originally made their own beverages, but they realized that they weren't quite up to snuff. So traps and snares were laid and polar bears were transported to the north east of America. Hence he Polar premium line was born. Those bears worked tirelessly on different formulas and recipes until they had created a surprisingly dark root beer with a huge head on it (due to the addition of quiaia extract). It has a nice vanilla flavor, and you can taste bits of caramel in the aftertaste. The problem wasn't making the soda. It was getting people to give it a try. You see, their old line was seen by people as more or less on par with store brand. It was cheap and available everywhere. They knew it would take some time and some marketing, but once people tried the soda they would be hooked, or so the bears told them. As we all know, bears know best. They whispered in my ear what to write in this review. It probably just comes off as the ramblings of a mad man, but who am I to argue with some gigantic polar bears?
- Website
- http://www.polarbev.com
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Cane Sugar
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 10/21/2012
- Comments
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