Root Beer - 223 Reviews

I like dry sodas. They are a nice alternative when you don't want to drink a lot of sugar. The flavors generally aren't overly strong, but I can get over it for the trade off. Fruit flavors generally make the best dry sodas. Unfortunately root beer does not. Root beer is meant to be robust and full bodied, two things you just can't get with a dry soda. In essence this is some seltzer water with some root beer flavoring added to it (plus the tiniest amount of cane sugar). To be fair it does have birch oil and vanilla in it, so it is all natural. It's unfortunate that it doesn't really work for root beer, as the flavor isn't very apparent and it tastes like watered down root beer.

Things I am not into include the newish style of music called Witch House of Witch Hop. It's basically slowed down hip-hop beats with “creepy” keyboards and vocals over them. It's similar to trip hop, which I am a fan of a handful of bands, but the vocals always make it sound like the tape is just playing at the wrong speed. A lot of it reminds me of music that would be in a David Lynch movie, but not as good. I have to say after reading my description, if I hadn't already heard it, I would instantly check it out. The Witch House band I hear about the most is Salem, which is where this drink is from, and more than likely where the style for their name from. Also like a lot of the music this soda is very smooth. It tastes like a nice smooth creamy root beer, except it's birch beer. Normally birch beer has a slight harshness to it, but that is not present at all in this bottle. It has a pretty standard birch beer flavor, but the smoothness is not normal with this flavor. I just wish the music was as good as the soda.

I used to be in a band. I've mentioned it before and I'll mention it again. I don't give a rip. One day, we as a band dug out my drummer Josh Myers' (see where I'm going here?) basement. "Dug out?" you say? Yes. He lived in an old house in the outskirts of the suburbs and had a section of the basement that had a dirt floor. He dad needed some help so we dug down about a foot or two in about a 150 to 200 square foot space. That's a lot of dirt.

We dug and dug and filled up wheelbarrows and dumped it in an unused well outside. I don't remember how we got it up the stairs, or if there were stairs, or if we made a ramp but all I know is that I took my shirt off because it didn't matter where else dirt got because we were covered. All of us. We did a great job and I can't imagine the amount of money that we saved Josh's daddy. We all felt accomplished and were thanked by a fantastic pizza; the food of movers and grunt workers.

Back then there was no Thirsty Dudes so back then we were all idiots drinking no-name cola but now...now I know better. If I could do it again, I would bring a cold six-pack of this stuff. Nothing is manlier than root beer and four dudes digging dirt like some sort of criminal or misbehaving dog or human backhoe deserves great stuff. This root beer is strong and contains a special ingredient that changes the entire way that this drink tastes. Cinnamon. I've wanted a nice root beer with cinnamon for a while. I don't know why, but I have and this drink doesn't let me down.

Now I can't go back in time to quench the thirst of us, but I can meet up with some of the guys and give them a bottle and have them mentally go back and reminisce about "the old days" and how much better it would have been with this root beer. Good time, good tunes, and good root beer: the equation for a good time.

I found this at a specialty soda shop here in Portland called Cosmic. After visiting Galco's, Village Candy, and Pop Culture, I didn't think there was a chance they'd have anything that I hadn't seen before. To my surprise, there were a good handful of brands I hadn't heard of yet. I decided to give this one a try first, perhaps because I was with two friends from Philadelphia at the time.

Disappointment. That's what the first sip tasted like. It has a very syrupy taste to it, but practically no bite. It honestly was more of a sarsaparilla than root beer. It wasn't horrible (I've had much worse), but it wasn't that great.

Wisconsin is a land of wonder. For some reason that state will always be a little slice of heaven for me, well besides the craphole that is Milwaukee. How can the rest of a state be so serene and magical and then it is mostly known for such a pile of filth. In the few times I have visited that city I've had a run in with suburban punk kids who thought they were nazis, watched a drug deal gone wrong and violence ensued, watched knives get pulled on people and various other activities perpetrated by degenerics. Then there are towns like Appleton that are filled with joy, wonder and amazing people. I got my highest score ever in Galaga at a Laundromat in Appleton. That is enough for me to love it forever.

I've been to many towns large and small in that incredible state, yet I have never visited Janesville, the home of Gray's Brewing Company. It is another beer brewery that also puts out a line of sodas. If I've learned anything through my years at Thirsty Dudes it's that you should pay attention when a brewery starts making some root beer. It's usually something special. Gray's knows that root beer should be stored in brown bottles; none of that clear garbage.

The root beer has a heavy wintergreen and licorice flavor to it. It's a classic root beer taste that is better than the pops “big soda” puts out. That is a hysterical idea: big soda. Seriously though, the way this tastes is what I think of when I think of root beer. It's not complex and there is nothing that particularly stands out about it, but it's solid and that's all you can really ask for.

Now Wisconsin, you should really think about kicking Milwaukee out of your state. Maybe IL would take them?

It's been a long time since I last took a trip to Hosmer Mountain. It's a great place to visit this time of year. The trees are full, the air is crisp, and there are not too many bugs around to bother you. Let's not forget the best part of Hosmer Mountain, the abundance of delicious soda everywhere. I managed to find this bottle of Sarsaparilla lying on a pad of moss under an oak tree. I had to wrestle it away from a raccoon, but it found another bottle a few minutes later so luckily it didn't claw my face off.

The soda you find at Hosmer Mountain is always delicious. This is definitely one of the best sarsaparilla's I've ever had. It's really smooth with a nice thick molasses taste to it. It's one of the sweetest bottles I've had, not to mention the strong vanilla aftertaste.

So if you ever find yourself in New England, do yourself a favor and climb Hosmer Mountain. Even if you hate nature, it's worth it to find the delicious bottles of soda scattered everywhere. Hurry before those pesky geo-cachers get them all.

It's well known that in the 40's the Manhattan Project was underway to produce the first atomic bomb. The US, UK and Canada all worked together, spending an obscene amount of money to basically devise a weapon that will someday cause the end of the world. Scientists worked long and hard to achieve their goal, even coming up with some cool fission guns using uranium. Nuclear weapons in gun form sound terrifying, yet strangely alluring (note to self: you may indeed grow up to be a super villain).

The men who worked on this project knew that they would get nowhere if they worked constantly. No one ever got anywhere with out a little playtime mixed in. Since they were scientists their playtime of course involved mixing ingredients to create something new. Back in '43 they had a little challenge going on the various project locations to see which team could create the best tasting soda. The team based in Brooklyn, NY ended up winning the competition. Led by Dr. Jonathan Osterman the team had a brief brainstorming session while separating uranium-235, and decided that the only way they could win this little game was to brew their own version of the greatest soda on the planet: sarsaparilla. To say they succeeded is a bit of an understatement. If there were any justice in this world these men would be more famous for their soda than their weapons of mass destruction. What they created is a dark sarsaparilla with a heavy licorice and wintergreen levels in it. Every aspect of it is strong, and I will forgive those men for the future destruction of everything I know. The 10oz bottles that it comes in simply aren't enough. I could drink this all the livelong day and not have had enough. Perhaps the team cheated and used a little bit of that uranium in their recipe. I would risk radiation for this, would you?

Jay and I fiddled with root beer in the past. We love it. We absolutely love it. We made some Mr. Root Beer root beer and it was good but it just tasted like root beer barrels. That's not bad but we like our root beer with a bit more depth and body. We're root beer snobs. There. I said it. We went one step further and made root beer by actually boiling roots, fermenting stuff, and much more. That one we messed up and it came out terribly. Something went a rye and it was disgusting. We were pumped about it, too and spent a lot of time making it and even more time anticipating drinking it.

Now I can make root beer any time I want with a couple presses of a button and a laundry detergent-like measuring system. Quality? It's better than Mr. Root Beer but not by much. It's good, though. It's not that bold but it's absolutely drinkable and pretty good nonetheless. Entry level. More "candy" than "gourmet." A stepping stone to high quality, hand crafted root beer that takes a lot more than pressing a button a bunch of times. I often want root beer, though and now I don't need to want it for very long.

Here in the dungeon we make one thing and that is root beer. No cola or grape or pineapple pop, just root beer. We do it in the dungeon down underground because the humidity is just right. Unfortunately we don't get the best products to make our root beer so it tastes a bit basic but it's not bad. It's just something we have the prisoners do when they are waiting to be set free. They like it, too because it's a fun process that bides their time while they are serving it. Get it? They serve their time while serving root beer. That doesn't sound that bad to me but I'm happy that I get to see the sun every once in a while.

One time, we got the wrong shipment and they sent us cream soda by mistake. We don't get a lot of shipments so we had to make due with what we had. Ever since then, we have had root beer that tastes a little like cream soda. The dungeon masters seem to like it a lot, which is good because the more they like you, the sooner you will get out.

It's not all torture and starvation down here. Sometimes we make root beer and have a good time. Next time you drink Big Shot root beer, think of the fun a prisoner had while making it.

The Caruros are a family that means business, just look at that photo. The man looks like he's a pleasant enough chap, who enjoys a good time, but his wife looks as if she doesn't take guff from anyone. It is because of this combination that they were able to achieve and uphold a level of quality in their sodas.

With this root beer they were not out to invent something new, they wanted to keep things tasting classic, and to make it in the same way. Many companies nowadays use “root beer extract” or some such thing to get a generic root beer taste. When companies do that their product suffers from mediocrity. The Carusos took their time perfecting a formula and then ran with it. It's full bodied with a nice wintergreen aftertaste. When I got closer to the bottom of the bottle it had a kind of woodsy flavor that reminds me a lot of the Sprecher sodas. This blows their root beer out of the water though.

Now go and wash up. It's dinnertime and you don't want to keep Mrs. Caruso waiting.

I've had Day's stuff before. It's good. It's basic, but it's good. I wanted a root beer so I went through my stash, picked one out, went to put it in the fridge, and noticed that this was queued up all ready to go. Awesome.

Now I will admit that I've become a bit of a drink snob since I've been doing the website. It happens since I drink so much. I have to pick favorites and you really get to hone down what you really want in a specific drink. Teas I like a little bitey. Root beer I like dark with a lot of licorice. Sweet tea I like with real sugar and as little ingredients as I can get. When I come across a can of root beer with high fructose corn syrup, I almost instantly don't care. I will still drink it with an open mind, but my brain tells me that I already know what it's going to taste like. This was different.

There is a little bite to this and the ingredients don't really do the drink itself justice, I feel. This is a medium to dark root beer with a strong root beer taste. It tastes less sweet than a standard root beer would taste. The fact that I'm still explaining how this tastes is extra credit to them. What's great is this is good enough to get again and I don't think it's hard to find.

Day's; I'm sorry for not having faith in you. You have most certainly earned it.

Terry worked as a heating and cooling repairman for 13 years of his life. He drove his van around Western New York fixing people's stoves, fridges and air conditioners. Most days he didn't hate his job, but there wasn't much room for advancement. He did love driving around a lot though. Then one day he was fixing a guy's air conditioner and he got to talking to him. You see Terry loved fixing things, and he liked to explain it as well. The man was so impressed with his passion that he offered him a job at his company. He would make more money and promotions were a possibility. Terry knew he would miss his driving around and didn't like the idea of being stuck in one play all day, but the money was nice and he needed a change. He took to the job like a fish to water. He took a couple of trips to other states to fix some industrial units, and getting away was nice. Then one day he got asked if he would be willing to go to Australia for a week for the job. Not being a dummy he jumped at the chance. So within six months this fine man went from working a quasi dead end job to working for a growing company and being sent around the world doing work that he found interesting. It's times like these that I am incredibly proud of my friends. It's also times like these when I am thankful that I have friends who travel around the globe and bring me back gifts of drinks.

This is a bottle of Australian sarsaparilla that was purchased at a roadside fruit stand in said country. (As a side note, if you don't take advantage of roadside fruit stands when you are traveling then you are a fool.) I expected this to be a very strong sarsaparilla for some reason, but it's not and I'm okay with that. It has a very classic soda flavor to it. I could see this being served in a 50's soda shop with a couple sharing a bottle with two straws. It starts off as just a generic old time soda flavor but when you swallow it has a strong sarsaparilla aftertaste. It's not what I was looking for but it's a soda that has its place and I can respect and enjoy that. I do with the licorice flavor was a bit stronger in this. Then it would be superb.

Oddly enough this is made by the Fosters Beer company. I don't know why I find that weird, but I definitely do. Also the tagline on the bottle is “Refreshingly Tasmanian.” Now that I find charming.

Mike and I get nutty over Hansen's sodas. A few years ago he ordered a case and he and editor Dan went on a mini tour with my old band. We drank way more soda than anyone should, but we were stuck in a van for long periods of time, and you get bored, so you drink. The thing is that Mike ordered all of the fruity flavors. They were all great. Even when they were on the verge of boiling from being in the van for days in the middle of August, they still tasted good (albeit extremely weird and corrosive). For as much as I love their other sodas this is the first time that I have tried their root beer, and I am shockingly not impressed. It tastes like the company took a normal everyday root beer like A&W or Dads and just switched out the sweetener for cane sugar. There's nothing really special to the flavor at all. Since it claims to be creamy, I expected there to be a heavy vanilla presence, but it's only slightly more apparent than in “normal” root beers. I can't say that I dislike it at all, but I just expected more from a company who has made other sodas that were so spectacular.

After every successful mission the boys from the A-Team would reconvene at their secret hideout in eastern Pennsylvania. There they would debrief and then relax with their hobbies outside of being solders of fortune.

B.A. Baracus found his inner peace while making sodas. Thinking he was clever he named then A-Treat. He would always try to hand them out to the rest of the boys for a job well done, but none of them really gave him much attention as they thought he was an idiot due to his inarticulate speech. B.A. didn't let that get him down though he just kept plugging away making his soda.

He became enthralled in the sodas of the region, specifically birch beer. He was determined to create the world's greatest version of this drink. He tinkered for weeks with it. He was so pleased when he was done that he ran to the others to try and get them to try it. He was so happy when Hannibal grabbed the bottle and took a swig. He said that it was decent albeit a bit too syrupy for his liking. He said it kind of tasted like it should be birch beer flavored cough medicine, but that strangely didn't make it bad. He also likened it to a birch beer version of root beer barrel candy. Then he handed back the bottle. B.A. was so ecstatic that he didn't even realize that Hannibal had slipped some drugs into the bottle before he handed it back. B.A. finished the bottle and then the next thing he knew he was on a plane off to another mission. Damn Hannibal!

My friend and business partner Alex Wrekk bought this for me today at a Pizzeria in a section of North Portland called Kenton. The photo is the only label that was there, the actual bottle was a generic brown glass bottle with no markings on it.

I was hesitant to try a drink in an unmarked bottle, but I'm glad I did because this root beer is great! It has a great anise taste (and I love anise). It reminds me a little of Virgil's, but more complex and not as heavy. The only word that comes to mind when trying to describe the aftertaste is "earthy". I hope that doesn't make me sound like a hippie.

Last year we had Avery's bottle some private label birch beer and sarsaparilla for us. We made up some rad Thirsty Dudes labels and Mohawk Place, a rad local bar, sold them. Within a couple of days we were out of all of them. We wanted to order more, but the shipping cost was too high to make it cost effective. We've been searching for a closer bottler since. That's not really important. What is important is that the sarsaparilla we got from them was decent, but nothing to write home about. It was actually fairly light in color, which was a bit odd. I realized we never ended up reviewing one of them for the site, so we ended up picking up a bottle of it at Soda Pop Central. Since we already knew what it tasted like we have been sitting on it for a while. Now the time has come and I have to say that this tastes way better than what they bottled for us. Maybe we got a bum batch or something, but this is very strong. It actually tastes more like a root beer than a sarsaparilla. Actually it tastes like a root beer while a whole mess of licorice in it. It's dark and great. It's a bummer that our batch wasn't their best, but it's good to know that this company can make a really nice soda. I wouldn't pass it up if I saw it in the store, and neither should you. Now someone find us a place to inexpensively bottle some soda with a Thirsty Dude's label.

Nigel is a man with no free time. You see, everyone is always making plans for him. His parents, his boss, his kids, and his wife: all of them always predetermining everything that he does. Nigel wishes he could just sit back in the woods and relax with a nice cold birch beer and just enjoy the scenery. As it turns out he has no time for soda at all. You see his wife had already made plans for him to drink eight large glasses of water a day. Consuming that much water leaves little to no room for him to enjoy a nice frosty soda. It's sad times for Nigel. He remembers a simpler time before everyone told him what to do when he was a child in eastern Pennsylvania. He used to constantly drink Pennsylvania Dutch birch beer. Even now as he is sipping his fifth glass of water for the day he can remember how strong it smelled when he would twist off the top. His nostrils would be instantly greeted by the glorious smell of anise heavy birch beer. Oh man just thinking about that smell lets him pretend that the water he is drinking is actually that self same birch beer. Man, that smell is also apparent in the taste. It's so anise/licorice heavy. Also it had a reddish tint to it, which he always found strange and wondrous. Actually now that he thinks of it that birch beer tasted exactly how he would imagine root beer barrel candy would taste if it was birch been instead of root. Now that's a thought. He could have a batch of candy made to that specification. After all he was the heir to a candy fortune. What better way to spend his company's money and resources? It's not like he worked at British Steel. That would be a horrible life. Instead everyone makes plans for him and tells him what to do, but he will be fine with it, happy even, as soon as he can suck on some birch beer barrel candies while he works.

Ginseng and I have not gotten along well in the past. My least favorite drink of all time involved ginseng. But in the name of Thirsty Dudes and root beer, I had to try this. The gold shimmer on the can made me think this was going to be a classy root beer.

Verdict? It's not really classy, but it's pretty good. It is indeed a creamy root beer, but the ginseng gives it a nice bite at the end. It also gives it a slight bitterness, but not in a bad way. The more I drink it, I realize that this is one of the better root beers I've had in a while. I hope I can find more Blue Sky sodas with ginseng in it.

After my disappointment with yesterday's birch beer I needed a soda that would be redeeming. While I have issues with Johnnie Ryan because I have emailed them several times about their products and I have never heard back from them, I also know that they know what they are doing when it comes to making soda. Also, they are local to us so that makes it hard to stay mad. One of the emails I actually sent to the company a couple of years ago was regarding whether or not their birch beer would be made available in bottles. I had a glass of it in a “fair/carnival” themed restaurant in the mall once and it was pretty great. As I said I never got a response, but here I am with a bottle in front of me, so I guess the answer to my question was “Yes.”

The Mercury Brewing Company messed up their birch beer pretty bad, but Johnnie Ryan got everything right. The bottle doesn't mention it, but the cardboard the four packs come in say that it is “black birch beer.” I was intrigued by this, but assumed it was just a quirky name. Wrong. This is the darkest birch beer I have ever tasted. The store in the mall was correct to carry this as their main beverage because it definitely falls under the category of “fair birch beer,” but they took it further and made it very dark, full bodied and flavorful. This is a new product in bottle form and I really hope it sticks around. I always have a hankering for some birch beer, and it can be a pain to find a decent one around these parts.

To sum things up, this may be the best birch beer I have ever tasted. You should definitely pick some up if you see it. Also, Johnnie Ryan you make great sodas, just try to get better at responding to emails. Your mother wants to make sure you're doing okay out there by the falls.

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.