Finally, a Beer the Whole Family Can Enjoy

Finally, a Beer the Whole Family Can Enjoy
Lew Bryson

Award-winning author and beer connoisseur Lew Bryson (beerfly@prodigy.net) is the managing editor of the Malt Advocate and has written for the Ale Street News, the Philadelphia Inquirer,and the Chicago Tribune. He is also the author of "Pennsylvania Breweries", Stackpole Books, 1998 (rated 5 stars out of 5 by the readers at Amazon.com!). This article was originally published in Malt Advocate, Vol 5, No 3, 1996, and is reprinted with the permission of the author. Thanks Lew!

Many of us remember our first 'real' beer: a Guinness on St. Patrick's Day, a friend's homebrew, a pint of Samuel Adams at a club. While my first great beer was indeed a revelation, I also clearly remember my first 'real' encounter with another beverage. I was at a beer store with my brothers-in-law, stocking up for the weekend; a six of this, a bottle of that. On our way to the cashier, we passed a display of root beer. Root beer? Why not? We grabbed a six of Dominion and a handsome brown swingtop bottle of Virgil's, loaded it all in the car and left.

As I wheeled the car out into traffic, I grabbed the Virgil's, levered the swingtop open, and took a swig. Time slowed, and my senses came into sharp focus. Expecting just another soda, I found a complexly delicious experience: creamy texture, rich caramel sweetness, a rush of vanilla. "You gotta try this," I said reverently, handing it to Curt. His eyes lit up as he swallowed the brew, and I gunned the wagon back to the store, where we bought up the entire stock of Virgil's

Why was that root beer so arresting? Most national-market food and drink has been subject to the same 'blandification' process as mainstream pilsner beer. Inevitably, as a producer tries to expand a market, a product gets 'rounded off' in order to be acceptable to more customers. The large overtake the small, and we wind up with white bread, Velveeta, and Coors Light. Mark Clough, head of Kemper's Soda, relates it to the same 'marketing pyramid' that drives beer styles and sales in America: "The blander the product, the more people you can sell it to. As you increase the character, make the flavor more extreme, fewer people will like it. But those who do like it, really like it!" Clough should know: his microbrewed root beer (and other sodas) sell more than a lot of microbrewed beers.

A number of small root beer bottlers have managed to evade these economics, but many Americans only know the top four brands: A Barq's, Mug, and Hires. As with mass-market beer, these are certainly not poorly-made products. They are made with careful quality control and high standards. But the Virgil's and the Dominion are unabashed root beers, proudly not aimed at the widest of markets.

This new breed of premium root beer is following behind and beside the craft-brewed beer revolution. There are root beers with names familiar to the beer enthusiast -- Kemper, Sprecher, Abita, Dominion, F.X. Matt -- and many brewpubs produce a root beer for kids and adults alike. Like brewers, there are some old, established, 'regional' root beers -- Stewart's, IBC -- which have strong followings and produce exceptional products. Root beers have appeared on store shelves priced at $5.00 a six-pack and up, and like their barley brethren they sell briskly.

The big boys have already noticed: Coca-Cola and Pepsi are gearing up to push their respective Barq's and Mug brands (both former regionals recently purchased). They see root beer as The Next Big Thing. These developments mean trouble for some small bottlers. For years the giants allowed their distributors and bottlers to carry any root beer they liked. Now substantial financial muscle is being exercised to ensure that Barq's or Mug are the only root beers available from franchised distributors. "Deep Root", my anonymous source at an established 'flavor house' outside Philadelphia, told me not to worry: "The big guys want it all, but they've been remarkably unsuccessful at everything but colas." Mark Clough at Kemper isn't worried at all about the big root beer push: "We intend to grab their horse as it goes flying by and ride it ourselves!"

What is root beer, anyway? Folks seem to think it's a wholesome beverage brewed by our Colonial ancestors, but root beer was invented by Charles W. Hires (you may recognize that name). His concoction was introduced at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. Mr. Hires mixed up his drink using a number of natural oils and plant extracts, chief among them being sassafras root bark extract, oil of birch, and vanilla extract. "Deep Root" guessed that "We wouldn't really like Charles Hires' original recipe, it was pretty harsh. There's less bite today." But the same types of extracts and oils are used by brewers of root beer today as well, from the large to the small. You won't find anyone throwing bales of bark or roots into a brewing copper. "Deep Root" works at a flavor house, a business which supplies extracts, oils, and artificial flavors to various industries, including soft drink makers. Their company has a vast amount of expertise in how these various flavors affect the palate, and in how the flavors blend. These are the people to approach when you want to formulate a root beer. "Deep Root" explained how most root beers are created. "There are around 20 flavorings in the average root beer. We formulate a flavor for someone based on an old recipe or sometimes by mimicking an existing root beer. There's nothing new out there. Then we ship it out as an emulsion, about 1 gallon of base to 100 cases of root beer. The recipes are kept in our vault." There is a fanatical secrecy about root beer formulations, and very few producers were willing to provide even the name of their flavor house.

"Brewed" root beer means that the oils and extracts are actually cooked, rather than a simple cold water infusion of flavorings. As homebrewers know, this makes for a better marriage of the flavors. According to Randy Sprecher of Sprecher Brewing in Milwaukee, brewing also allows fine-tuning: "You can drive off some of the flavors you don't want [from the extracts] by brewing."

But root beer, like the old gray mare, ain't what it used to be. There was a scramble in the industry in the early 60's, when the FDA decided that sassafras root bark was carcinogenic. Extract-makers strove to find a palatable substitute. Most people agree that while the artificial substitutes are close, and the reformulated brews are good, genuine sassafras made a better root beer.

Once you've gone out and found your prized root beer, you'll want to sit down and take it a little bit seriously. Pour a fresh glass and focus your beer- or whisky-honed senses upon it. You'll notice things immediately: wintergreen aroma, vanilla, the minty-berry sassafras smell, and perhaps some teaberry.Individual brands may have 'signature' aromas such as coffee (Stewart's), cinnamon (Barq's), or licorice (Dad's).

Take a sip. Note the carbonation. Like real ale, low-carbonation root beers like Kemper allow more of the true flavor of the drink to come through. You may notice a creamy texture, a full body, particularly in the root beers sweetened with honey or all cane sugar. Matt's 1888 Tavern was particularly creamy, as were the Sprecher and Abita. "Deep Root" says "Cane sugar will give you that creaminess; you don't get it from high fructose corn syrup." Randy Sprecher uses honey because "Honey's got a lot of complex things in it, there are changes in the root beer from it."

The flavors will come through immediately. You may taste wintergreen ("That's actually from oil of birch," says "Deep Root."), mint, licorice, teaberry, cinnamon, nutmeg, eucalyptus, anise, orange. . . . There are some artificial flavors too, including vanillin. "Deep Root" says that in root beer, "the characteristics you get from vanillin are not really reproducible with 'genuine' vanilla."

While the concoction of root beer does not allow for the wide variety of flavors and aromas you will find in beer, the blending of the oils and extracts, their quality, and the method of preparation will make for distinct differences in flavor. For example, a brand new root beer in the Philadelphia market, Hank's, was developed by Philly beer wholesalers L Beverage when they moved into the soda market and decided to do their own root beer. John Salvatore, of the family which owns L ('Hank' is John's dad), says "We took a 100 year old recipe and tuned it up with some anise and a more creamy texture, and did a low carbonation. Formulating it took over four months of trial and tasting."

I asked "Deep Root" what made a root beer a root beer: "Tradition, mostly, a mimicking of the flavors of roots, berries, and plant extracts. I mean, root beer's only dark because of tradition, it's actually a kind of clear, cloudy mix until you color it." "Root beer is one of the most ill-defined products out there," Randy Sprecher laughs. The wonderful thing about root beer is that it is a pleasure your entire family can share, including the toddlers and the teetotalers. It makes for an exceptional training tool to show less experienced people a way to tease out flavors in food and drink. It still makes a great float with a good vanilla ice cream. And it's just a lot of fun to drink. Re-visit your youth, try some high-falutin' root beer!

Tasting Notes

Since this whole article is about taking root beer a little more seriously (mainly in order to have more fun with it), we decided to do what we do best here at the Malt Advocate: taste it and let you know what we thought. We got together and sampled the root beers listed below. It was educational, it was a bit challenging, but mostly, it was fun. This was one of the most fun tastings we've ever done, and by the end there was more giggling going on than at any barleywine tasting. We did not taste the major national brands of root beer, guessing that almost everyone was familiar with them. We tasted what we could get, and we went after the root beers which got consistently good recommendations from beer enthusiasts. Naturally, some fine root beers were not tasted. The best way to remedy that is to read the article, grab some root beer, and give it a spin yourself. Have fun!

Abita -- A strong wintergreen aroma leads into an melange of flavors: vanilla (and maybe a bit of chocolate?), somewhat woody, a nip of tobacco. The somewhat thinnish body was not all bad. My favorite label, nice Deco-style design. (Louisiana and surrounding states; also seen in DC)

Dad's -- This was definitely not a sweet root beer. Surprisingly rich aromas of mint, vanilla, and anise for a large regional in a can. Vanilla and anise flavor notes overlay strong wintergreen and mint. (Northeast U.S.)

Dominion -- A pleasant minty aroma. Perhaps overly fizzy, but full creamy body and a broad palette of flavors come through clearly. (Metro DC and Richmond)

Hank's -- This newcomer sports a caramel nose and a distinctly darkerthan average color. Low carbonation, creamy, vanilla and anise flavors. (Philadelphia and surrounding counties)

IBC -- An active nose, 'Canada mint' aroma, quite spicy. Not cloying at all, very refreshing, great creamy vanilla flavor. (National)

Jake Stolzfus homebrew -- (some Amish brew I stuck in as a ringer) YEASTY! Breadlike freshness and yeast overpowers -- stomps -- a light wintergreen flavor and aroma. "You gotta love this!" (Irishtown Rd., just past the railroad grade, Ronks, PA)

Kemper -- Kemper showed notably great head, with good retention. The creamy rich mouthfeel and matching vanilla aroma and flavor gave this 'micro-soda' standout status. (Western U.S. and Atlanta)

Matt's 1888 Tavern -- A benchmark for the creaminess factor, Matt's had a strong wintergreen flavor and was somewhat peppery. (Utica, New York, and surrounding counties)

Sprecher -- This is big root beer. Starts with the rich, minty aroma, follows with a muscley, full body with sweet vanilla and anise flavors. Mouth-filling. (Wisconsin, MN, IA, IL, south Michigan, and Indianapolis)

Stewart's -- Stewart's has a toasted marshmallow nose, and an unique and well-liked surge of coffee in aroma, flavor, and finish. A splendid difference from mugs o' bark juice! (National)

Virgil's -- This quirky and delicious root beer has a nose stuffed with toasted marshmallow, vanilla, wintergreen, and mint. It's a creamy and rich drink, with flavors well-matched to aromas. (National)

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