Thursday, February 12, 2009

Midwestern Root Beer

I've been in Madison, Wisconsin all week for work. I'm taking a week long training class at the General Electric plant here. My class only runs until 4 in the afternoon and I've had my evenings free to explore the area.

In my travels this evening, I came across a locally brewed root beer. Yeah, you know I can't pass that up. (For those keeping track, I am still on my self-imposed caffeine fast. March will be one complete year).

That brings me to Sprecher root beer. It gets bonus points for coming in a full pint sized bottle. That's a whole 16 ounces, as opposed to the normal 12 ounces we're used to seeing in soda/beer bottles. It gets even more bonus points for using honey as a sweetener. However, it loses some of that bonus since it still uses high fructose corn syrup. In fact, the corn syrup is the second ingredient listed (meaning that it's the 2nd most abundant), right after carbonated water.

On the plus side, the root beer is very smooth and creamy. The honey adds a very subtle taste. It's well balanced. On the flip side, nothing really stands out, taste wise. This doesn't make it bad, just not as exciting as Maine Root or Harpoon.

2 comments:

Yomper said...

Hey, if you're still there and wouldn't mind, please snag me a bottle. I'm always up for trying a local root beer.

Quartermaster said...

Alas, I arrived home before I saw your comment. Next time I find a new root beer to try, I'll snag one for you too.