Root Beer - 223 Reviews

The label for this bottle screams "we're trying to be cute and retro, but really just bottled a mediocre root beer and called it olde time". I'm glad that this was not the case because I was excited to try this local soda (it's made in Seaside, Oregon).

The taste of this is really different than most root beers. To say this has a vanilla taste is an understatement. This reminds me of a root beer float with vanilla ice cream. Yup, that's it! And I love root beer floats. But sadly, this is no substitute for a root beer float.

Now I am really craving a root beer float. Why does it have to be 1am?

Dear Olde Brooklyn,
I marked this correspondence as private and personal, so I hope you took the proper precautions before opening it. I don't know how to tell you this without shocking your system, so I'll just come out with it. You have a spy in your product line. No, I don't mean a pointy nosed fella wearing all black or white. I'm talking about real deal espionage here. I would have called you, but I fear our phones may be tapped. This is serious business. Who knows how far their plants go into your company.

I blame the youth culture that has taken over the once fair neighborhood of "Billysburg." I believe they may have used their terrible sense of irony and love of PBR to work their way into your company. As far as I can tell, once they gained access to your factory, they found the barrels that you store your root beer in (Root beer is always stored in barrels right? Candy wouldn't lie to me!). They dumped out your supply of precious root beer and replaced it with root beer scented cola. While it may be a decent enough cola, and the little root beer that was left in the barrels flavored it slightly, it still clearly tastes like cola.

I can hear the sound of fixed gear bikes closing in on my office. I fear they may be on to me. I don't know what end these spies are working towards, but please use the knowledge I have passed onto you in whatever manner you see fit.

Sincerely,
I. M. Fletcher


ps. This message will self destruct in five seconds.

We here at Thirsty Dudes love root beer. It's possibly our favorite beverage, and that is saying a lot. I've maybe tried a hundred different types of root beer and I've enjoyed almost all of them. I found this in a local specialty shop today. I was pretty pumped because their Puma Cola is fairly spectacular. On top of that, look at that combination of the crow and monkey creature on the label. It kind of reminds me of the racist crows from the old Loony Tunes cartoons. I'm going to assume it was not meant to be an homage.

So we've talked enough about the label, let's discuss the taste. I'm really not into it. When it first hits your taste buds it has a great classic root beer taste, then suddenly everything changes. Mike says it tastes like oak and that it's woody tasting. To me it tastes like someone spilled some cleaning solution into the vat of root beer. I kept on drinking, but I just can't get over that secondary flavor. Sorry Sprecher, you didn't do it for me this time.

You know when you drink something and it has a very distinct taste, but when you look at the ingredients it's not there? That happened with this bottle. My first sip I got a really strong pancake syrup flavor mixed with the root beer. Thinking it was a fluke, I took another sip and it was more of a brown sugar taste. Turning the bottle to see the ingredients, i was shocked to not find brown sugar. There is honey and "real vanilla" in this bottle. The honey isn't overpowering, but it's a nice and subtle aftertaste. The vanilla helps this be one of the sweetest and smoothest root beer's I've ever had. While it's a nice and smooth root beer, I wish it had a little more bite to it.

How have we gone this long without reviewing IBC Root Beer? This was the root beer I grew up on. In high school my friends and I used to get the 32 oz bottles (we called them IBC 40's despite being 8 oz less) everyday and walk around our town drinking them. It was a glorious day when the dollar store started selling them.

I love this root beer. I don't know if it's the familiar taste, the fond memories I get from drinking IBC, or if it just that good. It doesn't have much bite, but it goes down so smooth! Even though it's sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, it doesn't taste syrupy at all. If I hadn't looked it up, I would have thought this had real sugar in it. That makes me wonder how good this would be if they did a batch with cane sugar.

Have you ever been super stoked on a drink but then you take a sip and you find out someone put sand in it? This has never happened to me, but it's how I feel about this can. I love root beer and I love Hansen's, but I do not love diet soda. For a second this taste good, but then the awful diet acid taste kicks in. Sorry Hansen's, I'm sticking with the regular sugar versions of your soda.

I've never been to Old Faithful. I wonder what it's like. Probably boring for like 90% of the time and then, and only one and a half times, it's awesome when "Old Faithful" spits up water. Can you get the water on you? Does it smell? Is it sulfur water? When I was in college, I dated a girl called Becky and she lived in Clifton Park, a suburb of Albany. We took a "day trip" to Saratoga Springs, home of the racetrack and sulfur springs. In the center of the town they have a record store which I bought my first Boards Of Canada EP which I think was called "Music Has the Right To Children" which I just discovered is one of my two misplaces/stolen/lost Boards Of Canada record along with "Geogaddi" and a drinking fountain. I thought to myself, "Look at all those other people drinking out of that fountain. I think I'm thirsty enough to drink out of it myself." So I wander over there, wait in the queue and take a bit sip and...gross. What Becky failed to tell me is that it was a sulfur spring and that's why it both smelled and tasted like farts.

Old Faithful root beer does not smell, or taste, like a fart. It tastes gosh darn delicious. This is one of the best root beers that I have ever had. My girlfriend said that it was too spicy, but I didn't think so. It was very "homemade" tasting. Very bold flavors and a very strong root beer taste. I liked that it wasn't at all weak, probably much like the pressure that builds up inside Old Faithful every whatever duration she so faithfully spits up at. It had an excellent bite and it invited you back for more with every sip. I liked it. Saratoga Springs on the other hand, if it wasn't for that record store and that wonderful hole in the wall called "Esperantos", I would have written you off years ago.

In the movie Pretty In Pink, Duckie eventually gets the girl. You didn't think he would. Face it. What did he have to offer? Sure, he was a bit charismatic, but that's about it. He wasn't much to look at, and at best he was a dweeb. He knew music. That was another thing. That whole sing-along in the record store was absurd and if I were a girl, I would have written him off for a lifetime. Molly Ringwald, though, she's a forgiving and understanding girl.

This root beer is like Duckie in that I thought it was going to suck, but was actually pretty good. It has a pretty good, honest rooty root beer taste. No, I'm not saying "rooty root" to be cute. If it's cute, I apologize. I just did my best at describing it. I think it's pretty on par to root beer barrels, which I like.

Dearest Duckie/Jon Cryer,
I'm sorry that your show got canceled. It wasn't your fault. I didn't have a taste for it, but you brought laughter to the hearts of millions night after night (due to syndication) and you did a good job. Now twice. Congratulations on spreading happiness through multiple decades.

Invisibility; the world's most desirable super power. Flying? Yeah, that's awesome. I would love that, but invisibility...that's where it's at. Honestly, the best place is probably some sort of girls changing room or communal shower. What? I'm a scumbag? Yeah, like you didn't think it. I guess practical jokes would also be pretty awesome. Ghosting people. Carrying drinks around, making them look like they're floating. That would be awesome. When you're invisible and when you eat things, do they just disappear when you eat them? I would be psyched if you could eat things as "an invisible" and the food would go down and look like it was being processed, but then it will eventually turn in to poop and it's just going to be a walking turd and that will kind of give it away.

Oh, what am I getting at? This root beer was smooth, but there is no sign of head. Head is invisible but there is that essence of some sort of foam. It's a creamy root beer, really light. It's pretty average, but it's at very least, surprising.

This is my first go at Frostie Root Beer. It's a brand I've heard of since I was a kid. It's a classic in the world of root beers. The logo is iconic. I have friends that have Frostie paraphernalia hanging in their houses. I've always wanted to try it, but they don't have it around Buffalo, and I never saw it in my travels. Our friend Dan picked it up for me on a drive down to Florida. Now here I sit with my first bottle of Frostie. I like it. I really do. I didn't have high hopes. I was expecting a pretty run of the mill root beer. It is a pretty safe root beer, but it falls on the better side of average. It's very creamy. I mean really creamy with a lot of foam. It's not a gourmet drink, but it doesn't taste like root beer candy either. It's kind of a root beer of it's own kind. I'm kind of bummed that it's going to be quite some time before I can have this again.

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I finally got my hands on a cane sugar version of this. It was even better than the one I previously reviewed. It was in fact probably the best "normal" root beer I have ever had. It wasn't micro brewed or anything. It doesn't have anything wacky in it. It was just the best of the best when it comes to the style of A&W and Dads. If you ever see one, don't even hesitate to pick it up.

Sarsaparilla in a can? OK I'm willing to try this. It was pretty cheap so I was expecting this to taste pretty cheap. Was I right? Pretty much. I didn't know it was possible to make a mediocre sarsaparilla. Then again, there are lots of mediocre root beers so I guess someone had to screw up sarsaparilla as well. This just strengthens my suspicion that no good root beers/birch beers/sarsaparillas come in cans.

I want to shake the hand of the person who thought of this drink. I am a big fan of both root beer and sarsaparilla, but I never thought of combining the two. It seems like mixing the two flavors would be like when Ray, Peter, and Egon crossed the streams. It would be a bad idea in theory, but it ends up being a really good thing.

Hosmer Mountain track record with sodas is still staying solid. This is another one that is sweetened with brown sugar and it makes it really rich and delicious.

We've talked among ourselves that it's the middle of the road drinks that we have the hardest time reviewing. If a drink is horrible, it's easy to distinguish what's so bad about it. When a drink is amazing, there are so many thoughts we have about it, that's hard not to write an essay about it. But when a drink is good, but not amazing, that's when it's hard.

There's nothing wrong with this sarsaparilla. It's really smooth and clean tasting (probably because they use spring water), and the flavor is good. It's a very classic flavor, but there's nothing special about it. If someone gave me a bottle of this, I'd be stoked. Although, I don't think I'd seek it out as my #1 drink. Maybe I've become a soda snob?

I wonder what the Mr. Brown got his doctorate in. Was it Sodaology? Can he be called a Popologist? Should I just keep making up words? All we know for sure is that he (or is the doctor a woman?) graduated from a university and got a PHD in something. He/she then went out and got famous by creating Cel-Ray Soda. Love it or hate it you have to admit that it tastes just like celery. Science at it's best! Since the famous doctor was able to pinpoint the exact flavor of celery and transfer it to a soda I had very high expectations of what this magic man could do for their other flavors. After a sip I'm beginning to think that the good doctor may have been a one trick pony. This is a pretty average root beer. It doesn't have any interesting ingredients, thus nothing really jumps out at you. I would put it in the same category as A&W or Mug . It's nothing special, but also nothing terrible. I must urge the doctor to hit the books again. You may have a PHD, but it's never time to stop learning. Especially when we all know you can do better with your root beer.

I grew up in Tonawanda, NY, which is a suburb of Buffalo. Within Tonawanda, there was a section of it call Millstream. I had several friends who lived there and would hang out in that area a lot. One of my fondest memories about Millstream is when we started backyard wrestling under the name MWA, or Millstream Wrestling Association. I used to borrow my grandfather's video camera to tape all the matches. Good times!

This root beer would have been perfect for those summer days. We would have been really stoked on the name, and probably unofficially named it the official root beer of MWA. It has a perfect mixture of sweet and root beer taste to it. And then, there is a slight vanilla aftertaste that lingers on your lips. While this isn't the most complex tasting root beer, it really earns its "old time" name. This is a classic tasting root beer.

Root beer like this reminds me why I love root beer. It's really smooth and rich, with hints of a lot of different flavors.

In the world of root beer, I've heard the term "head" a lot but have never experienced it much with bottles. This has "drought style head". Judging by my experience with this bottle, this must mean "lots of head". After putting this bottle down for a minute, the whole neck was filled with head. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, just an observation.

One thing I miss about living in Buffalo, NY is the abundance of birch beer. I even had a keg of birch beer at my high school graduation party. I cannot find a bottle of birch beer anywhere here in Portland. There's plenty of root beer, but no birch beer. Which is why I was excited when I got this bottle in the mail as it's been quite some time since I've tasted the sweetness of a bottle of birch beer.

This bottle goes down real smooth. It has a really nice vanilla taste to it. I really like how Wild Bill's uses real sugar, because I don't get that heavy taste that some birch beers give you. I'm excited to try all the other soda's Wild Bill's has to offer.

This was another bottle I got from Anthony of Rootbeerbarrel.com, hence the green stuff on the bottle.

Before I started reviewing drinks for Thirsty Dudes, I probably would have thought this was one of the best root beers. Now that I've tasted a lot more root beers, I might be a little jaded. Don't get me wrong, this is a good root beer, just not the best I've had. It has a strong vanilla taste and goes down really smooth. The carbonation is also really light, which is nice. There is honey in it, but I didn't really notice much. It's not as prominent as the honey in Thomas Kemper is.

Dear Rat Bastard Root Beer, you have a really stupid name. I mean come on Skeleteens, you have a quality line of sodas, but you just try to hard to be "alternative" and "in your face" with your titles. When I was a young teenager I thought it was funny, but now as a grown ass man, it just seems childish. Yes, yes I know I'm a 31 year old that reviews soda pop, and that is pretty childish in it's own rite. Like a disappointed mother I think you're better than that.

Even though this has most of the same ingredients as all of the Skeleteens' sodas, it doesn't have a huge bite to it. It's pretty straightforward for a root beer. It has jasmine and clove in it, but I didn't really notice them too much until the last sip. Even then it wasn't very strong. I really expected it to be a unique root beer, but it would fit right in with the rest of the gang. Now remember Skeleteens, you don't need to resort to cheap promotional tactics. Let your soda speak for itself. It can do it. I have faith in you and I love you. Now wash up. Dinner is almost ready.

Open this up. Take a sip. It's fairly normal root beer, nothing too fancy. Oh wait what is that? It has a strange aftertaste. It's like someone drank 1/3 of this and then refilled the bottle with Moxie. It's a flavor that I can't really put my finger on. In Moxie it's almost medicinal, but not quite. In this it doesn't even get that far. I think it's the yucca extract that gives it that taste. It's unique in that aspect, but the actual root beer flavor leaves a little to be desired. It's better than your standard root beer, but it doesn't hold up against some of the "classier" root beers I've had lately.