Review: Boylan Bottling Co. Birch Beer

I never really know what to expect with a birch beer...because many companies don't really seem to know what exactly a birch beer is supposed to be.
Boylan seems to be another one of those companies.
I enjoyed this standard root beer with a slight hint of birch flavor. It wasn't too sweet, but it was not anything I would go back to buy again.
If you're unfamiliar with birch...think again. It is the primary flavor of old school baseball card package sticks of gum. Yes, THAT gum that "tastes like the bleachers".

Taste- 4/7
A pretty basic root beer, but a little less sweet and just a tiny hint of birch.

Aroma- 2.5/5
It didn't really smell like anything...which was odd, but not exactly unpleasant.

Packaging- 2/5
Boylan has a nice clean uniform labeling system that varies in color based on flavor...but it is also incredibly dull and not eye catching at all.

Overall- 8.5/17
This may have been one of the most mediocre soda's I have ever had, but would have been helped by not touting itself as a Birch Beer.
It'd be like if something was called "vanilla cola", but the vanilla flavor was only evident after you drank the whole bottle and licked your lips.

Review: Mason's Root Beer

My wife was recently on a grocery excursion when this particular bottle of root beer caught her eye, so she purchased aforementioned beverage and brought it home to me.

On the bottle, Mason's proclaims they have a "Keg Brewed Flavor"-which might be true. It is a good root beer, very root beer-esque, if you will, but it seems the keg it was brewed in was mostly already filled with Hires anyways, so they just put that in their own bottle and called it a day.
I don't really think I need to say anything else.

Packaging- 4/5
Ummm...it caught my wife's eye for some reason-yellow label and kegs maybe? I like the vintage look of the non-color Kegs and the basic brown/red on yellow.

Aroma- 4/5
Smells like Hires.



Taste- 5/7
Tastes exactly like Hires. Fake sassafras, a little wintergreen and a smidge of vanilla for creaminess. There's nothing wrong with tasting like Hires, it's one of the best and oldest out there. Nearly every company has made a Hires clone, so it's not really a wonder I stumbled across yet another one. If you've never had Hires and aren't exactly sure what it tastes like, go to the store and buy a bottle of root beer extract-nearly every brand is just a Hires clone. Root beer barrels are also Hires-flavored, even the A&W brand.

Overall- 13/17
It'd rate higher if it were Hire's, but incidentally it's not.

Recipe: Homemade Virgil's Root Beer Clone From Scratch

I'm going to start off by saying this-I'm quite aware that Virgil's lists the spices they use to flavor the root beer on the packaging, however, they do not list amounts. I decided to give it a try, excluding those spices I find either undesirable(cloves), or those things which I did not have in my ingredients vault(birch of any kind).
I combined all of the below together, and came up with a very close approximation of a tasty bottle of Virgil's.

1 tbsp. Licorice Root
4 crushed Star Anise Pods
1 Cinnamon stick(approx. 4 inches)
1 Vanilla Bean(approx. 6 inches)
1tbsp. dried Wintergreen Leaves
1/4 tsp. ground Nutmeg
5 pieces of whole Allspice
2 cups of Cane Sugar
2 tbsp. Blackstrap Molasses
1/8 tsp. yeast
4.5 qts. of Water

Start off filling your stockpot with 4.5 quarts of water, place all ingredients(minus sugar + yeast) into pot, turn to med-hi heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and allow to simmer with the lid on for approximately 20-30 minutes. Stir in your 2 cups of sugar and molasses, place in ice-water bath to allow to cool.
When the mixture gets down to about 95 degrees Fahrenheit, scoop a little bit into a coffee cup and add yeast to the coffee cup. After allowing yeast to culture for about 5 minutes, dump contents of coffee cup back into pot and stir in well. Bottle and wait 3-4 days(dependent on temperature), then move bottles to the fridge. You'll have a nice, homemade version of Virgil's Root Beer waiting for you. I'd say your best flavor comes about 3 days after placing it in the fridge. The amount of molasses can be modified to taste.
Try it for yourself and let me know in the comments how much/little you think it tastes like Virgil's.

Review: Dad's Old Fashioned Root Beer (Father's Day Special!)

In honor of father's day, I thought I'd review an old childhood favorite of mine-Dad's Old Fashioned Root Beer.
Growing up I knew there was something that separated Dad's from all of the rest, and I could never quite put my finger on it-there was a very distinct, earthy kind of flavor that reminded me vaguely of something else from my little pocket of the universe.
After having tried dozens of different sodas with various flavoring agents over the years, I've narrowed it down-Dad's is an Old Fashioned style(meaning it uses an artificial Sassafras flavor) root beer-which puts it in the same category as A&W, IBC, and Hires. The distinguishing feature, however, is birch. The first drink immediately calls to mind that other childhood treat-the stick of gum in a pack of baseball cards. I only realized that birch was  the source of that "bleacher" taste behind the baseball card gum after purchasing and imbibing my first birch beer.
So, in short, if you equate baseball card gum with dirt or the underside of the bench/bleachers at a baseball game, I'd stay steer clear of Dad's Root Beer or any other Birch Beer. However, if you're like me, there's few better carbonated beverages to crack open and poor into a cool, frosted mug on a hot summer's day.
To all the fathers out there on our special day-I tip my metaphorically frosty mug to you!

Packaging- 3/5
Bright blue label, a yellow square and red-lined block writing. Looks old fashioned, grabs attention, but still incredibly hideous. Much more appealing to the child in me.

Aroma- 3.5/5
Unfortunately, I had a HFCS version of this wonderful soda, so it really just smells like sweetness, only a slight hint of the tasty, delicious root-beery goodness that lie beneath. Maybe I'll have to track down some real sugar Dad's.

Taste- 5.5/7
It's not perfect, but it damn near is. The biggest mark against it is the almost immediate flatness that accompanies the second sip and beyond. The first crack gives a moderate amount of fizz-it's as though they only carbonated enough that it pours with a slight head(as any good root beer needs), but nothing else.

Overall- 12/17
So, how did one of childhood favorites get one of the lowest ratings in my site's history? Well, it loses carbonation too quickly, and a flat root beer is not a great root beer. The flavor is amazing, but not everyone is going to enjoy the birch-sassafras combo when the birch is the overwhelming factor. I still love Dad's, but until I find a sugar version it will remain lowly related. Could also be that the 1 liter Big Daddy Size is horrible on carbonation. We'll see.

Review: Sarsi

My daughter and I decided to stop into a local Asian grocer to kill some time while her sister participated in swim lessons, and after browsing cluttered aisles and overflowing shelves packed to the brim with myriad pre-packaged food products that all appeared to contain seafood of some kind, we finally decided to make our way back to the front to check out the eighties-style display coolers to look for obscure sodas. Boy, did I find one(along with another fruity soda that was a new brand but old favorite, which I will review another time).

I found Sarsi. A short, rather squat bottle with a red-white and blue color scheme reminiscent of two of the three most popular cola brands(Pepsi and Royal Crown), and the sickly-thick brown color to match. I got out to car, and went to open it and take a sip-only to find that it was(unsurprisingly) not a twist-off cap. So, I proceeded to unbuckle myself(safety first!), and my daughter and haul the sodas back inside in search of a bottle opener. I asked the man at the front, whom instructed me that the lady working in the cooler had one. After following my nose to the cooler-which at once reeked of rotting fish and dirty bleach-water, I had freed my beverages from their metallically capped prisons.
I got outside, took a sip, and was floored by an amazing flavor. It was familiar, but I couldn't place it. It wasn't like any other cola(although it had small hints of the background bouqet of China Cola), but it also wasn't like any other one thing I'd had before.
So-research was in order. The bottle let me know this specific one was from Singapore, but upon researching the brand name I learned it is produced in the Phillipines, and is a Sarsaparilla beverage. That explains why I recognized the flavor. I also discovered that Coca-Cola tried to bring down Sarsi's hold on the "root beer" market(not that I'd ever call this a root beer)  by releasing Barq's to the area. Lo and behold, Sarsi destroyed Barq's in sales, so Coca-Cola stopped competing- they pulled Barq's from the shelves/restaurants in the Phillipines and simply bought Sarsi. I guess that was one way of doing it. Anyways-onward!

Packaging - 4.5/5
Simple, to the point-but slightly misleading. I was expecting something a little more cola-like in taste based on the colors alone. Don't really know what color it should be, but maybe blue over orange would have been good-Cola Root Beer would have both been evoked and left me with no expectations but no surprises.

Aroma - 3/5
Smelled slightly herbally, and very sweet. Sugar and slightly root beer-esque, but not much so.

Taste - 5.5/7
Tastes good. Sweet, a little tart, some tang to it, and quite drinkable overall. I could drink this to refresh myself, to have something to sip on during the car-ride to work. Strongly preferred over a lot of other drinks-wouldn't consider it a root beer or a cola-maybe something in between.

Overall - 13/17
Really well put together soda. I see why it sold so well and has been distributed across the globe. It's incredibly flavorful without drawing many comparisons.

Status Update: Virgil's Clone and Reviews coming soon.

I began work on my Virgil's clone tonight, and will be writing up a complete status on the process later tonight/early tomorrow morning.
Also in the works are a few reviews.
Winter is a rough time for me to make soda because we keep our house rather cool, and when we leave for the day to explore and visit(which is often), we turn off all the heat in the house, so any attempts at soda would fall dormant to the cold.
I've made two batches since I restarted two weeks ago(a prototype and a batch of cream soda),
so there will also be an update concerning my prototype.
Come back soon!

Working on root beer and planning out my clone...

Making a second batch of root beer using the leftover ingredients from the first batch. Once Sassafras has dried out, it can be re-used. This batch promises to be a bit better, as I recently discovered that I used enough sassafras to make a 3.5-4 gallon batch! That explains the too-strong sassafras flavor I was getting with the last batch, so I dried it out and am  in the process of making a second batch that is 2 gallons.
I also made a better caramel color to be added to this batch-it's 1 cup of water and 1 3/4 cups of brown sugar. Brought the mix to a boil and let it go until it started to smell burnt, then reduced heat, constantly stirring to prevent the sugar from baking on to the sauce pan.
Anyways, I've been thinking about what I need to do to make my clone, and think I've got it worked out pretty well. What mass market root beer am I planning on cloning, you ask? The best of the best(in my opinion)-Virgil's. I will also be reviewing Virgil's Root Beer very soon.
Expect that review and the Sarsaparilla recipe shortly-the clone brew will come after I polish off this batch of root beer and the sarsaparilla.

Homemade Old Fashioned Root Beer from Scratch Follow Up

This has been one of my best brews yet. It carbonated within 24 hours, provided a tasty, refreshing beverage with an excellent head, and it has gone rather quickly.
I will say that the amount of Sassafras is a little excessive-imparted a bit too much of that for the first day of drinking. It's improved with age, but I imagine cutting down the 7 tbsp. to 4 will be more then sufficient. The 7 tbsp. was about 3 oz. I believe, and most "old fashion" recipes only call for an ounce per gallon. Oh well, I wanted a strong sassafras flavor and got it.
In addition to the sassafras, however, I also detect hints of molasses, cinnamon and a slight bit of black licorice. It has a bit of a bite to it-much like Barq's.
Another excellent side effect of this homemade root beer from scratch? The wort left over has made quite the nice potpourri. The mixing cup full of the strained wort still sits in our window sill, and every breeze sends subtle hints of root beer tones floating through our nostrils.
Next up-Sarsaparilla and my attempt to clone an excellent store-bought Root Beer.
Click here for the recipe to this homemade root beer...

Recipe: Homemade Old Fashioned Root Beer From Scratch

After one root beer experiment, I decided I needed to try to make an old-fashioned style Root Beer. It doesn't use some of the more traditional ingredients(like burdock, or dandelion root, or hops), but it is made with sassafras for that distinct root beer flavor that everyone associates specifically with root beer.
Here goes.

7 tbsp. Sassafras root(chopped and dried)
1 tbsp. wintergreen leaves
1 tbsp. anise seed(crushed)
1 tsp licorice root
1 3 in. Cinnamon stick
1 6 in. vanilla bean
2 cups of cane sugar
1 cup of brown sugar
1.5 gallons of water
1/4 tsp. ale yeast

Fill a stock pot with 1 gallon of water, and a jar(or bottle) with 1/2 gallon of water. Place the 1/2 gallon of water in the refrigerator, and combine all the herbs and spices above in the stock pot. Bring to a simmer, and after about 25 minutes(10 minutes of getting up to heat, 15 minutes to steep). Stir in both sugars, add cold water from the refrigerator, and let cool to under 100 degrees Fahrenheit.(I allowed mine to go to about 85).
Scoop a cup full of brew into a small container, add 1/4 tsp. of yeast, and allow it to work for 5-10 minutes. Strain the brew into another container(brew bucket), then mix in the yeast water. It's ready to bottle.
It's only been about 24 hours since I've made my brew and it's already carbonated-this could be due to the larger amount of yeast or the warmer weather, but fair caution, this might carb up a little more quickly then the other batches have.
There will be a follow up soon enough.

Memory Lane- Planting the seeds.

It's 1992, summertime. I'm eight years old, on break from school, and thirsty. I'd been running around outside with the other neighborhood kids, playing sports and climbing trees. My father, on the other hand, had been at the grocery store, picking up some refreshing treats-popsicles, ice cream bars-and something new.
What's this? A dark brown glass bottle with a green label? That's weird. Pappy's Old Fashioned Sassafras Tea? Huh. Interesting. I'd never heard of sassafras tea before. I'd heard the weird sassafras before-it was something to call smart-mouthed kids, maybe even something from Looney Toons...but I'd never heard of it being a tea (the following is a rough approximation of how it went down).
"What's this dad?"
"Well, you love root beer, so I thought I'd get you some tea made from sassafras-sassafras is what Root Beer was originally made from.
Sounded tasty to me. We poured some in a glass, filled it with water and ice and I took a sip...interesting. It tasted mostly like root beer...but different. Of course, the difference was mainly due to the lack of carbonation, but at 8, I didn't think of such things. I added more tea concentrate. It definitely satisfied my sweet tooth a lot better-so sweet in fact that it made my mouth pucker.
Anyways, I did eventually find the right mix of tea concentrate and water, and it was a very enjoyable substitute for regular ol' root beer.
It also inspired me to start trying to create my own sodas for the first time. I didn't know anything about home carbonation or yeast or anything like that. I don't remember my specific recipes, but I do recall the process was taking an empty 2-liter bottle, rinsing out the leftover soda, and combining all kinds of thins from around the house-any kind of liquid(besides milk) that I could find was combined with other things. Most of the time it was hot water, sugar, and some kind of juice-but I do recall one batch had a cap full of Scope mouthwash poured into it. I would then walk around the house trying to convince people to try my homemade "soda."  This worked pretty well for a little while-my parents or aunts/uncles would try my concoctions-usually grimacing from all of the sugar or the weird combination of apple juice, sunny delight and vinegar. However, once the bottle with mouthwash in it was sampled, word spread around and people started refusing to try my mixtures. I understand why, of course, but that discouraged me and quickly lead to me discontinuing my soda experiments. At least for a little while...

Homemade Root Beer from Scratch: Follow-up Numero Dos

I cracked open a bottle of my homemade root beer this morning after getting my eldest girls' breakfast- I think I've figured out the formula for Kid Beer. I took a drink-a little bitter, a little sweet, a bit yeasty. Flavorful, and has a nice head on it. I took another drink-yup, I now understand the concept of soft beer and how it eventually led to Root Beer.
I let my daughter try it(along with a bottle of cream soda from extract that has yet to carbonate), and she told me that she loved the big bottle better then the small bottle. Sure enough, the big bottle is my homemade root beer. I'm not sure how much alcohol is in it, but I'm willing to bet it's a little stronger then the 0.5% that is normally found in homemade sodas. My guess is that it's more on the 2-3% side, as it definitely has a slight alcoholic tang to it, although that could just be the full-bodied flavor of the ale yeast.
Anyways, traditional root beers call for two things in the recipe-a sweetening agent, and a bitter agent. It gives it a more complex flavor, and back in the day helped to mask the off-taste of leaky bottles which allowed some spoilage or the off-taste of bad yeast cultures. I think I used a bit much of my bittering agent(licorice root), and not enough of my sweetening agent-particularly the Sarsaparilla. I used 3 oz. of Sarsaparilla in a 1.5 gallon batch, but the recommended ratio is 3-5 oz. per gallon. I figured that it would be ok since I had a long list of ingredients. The sarsaparilla was sure to come out and enhance the other flavors-right? Wrong.
Next batch of root beer is going to use at least 5 oz. per gallon, and I'm going to exclude the licorice root. I'm also going to use star anise(instead of anise seed) next time around, as I didn't get any of the black licorice flavor I was looking for-although it was detectable when smelling the brew.
This wasn't a failure-it's a totally drinkable root beer. It's not what I was going for when I envisioned the root beer in my head though. However, I think if I allow my oldest daughter to drink this to her heart's content, she may just end up a little tipsy.

I won't do that. On a weekday anyways.

Click here for the first part of this article
Click here to read the recipe and process of making this homemade root beer

Homemade Root Beer from Scratch: Follow-up Numero Uno

So, this morning I decided to crack open another bottle of my homemade Root Beer-my first batch from scratch... and the above picture was my result. A nice, thick foam over-running the top of the bottle. It streamed out for about a minute or so(long enough for me to get my camera and take a picture...), and left plenty in the bottle to sample.
Obviously the carbonation was good, but how was everything else?

The brew came out with a nice orangish amber color(much like a dark beer), and smelled pretty tasty. Both things were different-the color was far better, and the aroma was much less licorice rooty.
So I took a swig-not too bad at all. My eldest daughter's initial reaction was favorable, but then she slowly decided she didn't like it anymore. I suspect this was the warm yeastiness more than anything else, so I unloaded the rest from their box and put them into the fridge.
I planned on not touching them for a couple of days, but I told my neighbor that my root beer had carbonated and was cooling in the fridge. After assisting him with building a shared fence, he asked if he could have one of my root beers. I was a little reluctant, but decided to let him try it out.
After his first sip, he said it was pretty decent-then he drove off with the rest. A few hours later he came back and assured me that it was "really good, but you're right, it'll be perfect in about 3 days".
It was a nice to hear that someone outside of my household enjoyed one of my homemade sodas-especially one that wasn't even done "curing" yet.
I'll be back in a few days to let you know how it tastes after some proper aging...
Click here for part 2 of the follow-up.
Click here for the recipe and process of making this Root Beer from scratch.

Recipe: Homemade Root Beer from Scratch

This past weekend I tried my hand at my first batch of root beer from scratch. I ventured to a local tea store(Wonderland Tea n Spice) to pick up my ingredients. I was a little hesitant about purchasing Sassafras to use in my batch, and the owner of the shop assured me that the quantities that would be used in my batches of soda would be small enough that there would be no harm. My concern, if you are unaware, grows from a longtime ban on Sassafras as a food ingredient by the FDA due to carcinogenic properties. Sassafras is one of the most important flavoring agents in old fashioned root beer, and for the last 40 years an artificial flavoring agent has been used in it's place. However, the FDA's testing methods were a bit extreme-they took pure essential oil of Sassafras(safrole) and injected large amounts into rats(which are naturally averse to it). Since we are not working with pure safrole, and are using a small amount of sassafras(3-6 oz./gallon), each 12 oz. bottle would contain only trace amounts of the carcinogenic component-so little so that one would have to drink 10 bottles a day, everyday for weeks to obtain an amount which would be harmful to the body. In other words, you would probably get sick from the sugar before the safrole would get to you.
However, I didn't account for sassafras in my planned ingredients list, and as such I decided to pass it up and find the ingredients I intended. Next time, however, I will buy some sassafras and try it out.
I went in there with Sarsaparilla as my intended main component-and after smelling both sarsaparilla and sassafras I determined that they don't vary too much in aroma, and as such are probably not too drastically different in flavor. However, I planned on making a root beer that was much more complex then just sarsaparilla on it's own.
So, on to the ingredient list-
3 oz. Sarsaparilla
2x 3 inch Cinnamon Sticks
1 tbsp. chopped, dried Licorice Root
2 tbsp. Anise seed
1x 6 inch Vanilla Bean
1 tbsp. dried, chopped Wintergreen Leaves
2 cups of sugar
about 1 cup of caramel color.

To make the caramel color I combined 1 cup of sugar, 4 tbsp. of brown sugar and 4 oz. of water in a one quart sauce pan, brought to a boil and allowed the syrup to burn(stirring to prevent it from caking on to the pot), and then slowly reduced the heat while stirring occasionally.

I placed my ingredients above(minus the caramel color) into a mesh bag, then combined with 1.5 gallons of water in a stock pot, brought to a boil for 20 minutes, then removed from heat and allowed to steep uncovered for 30 minutes.
I stirred in the caramel color and placed in a sink full of ice water until it cooled to 100 degrees fahrenheit, stirred in 1/4 tsp. of ale yeast and then bottled.
The taste test of what little remained in the bucket after bottling up about 11 bottles revealed too strong of a licorice root taste, so next time around I decided I would use more sarsaparilla and less licorice root(if any).

I decided to use my new bottles with swing-tops for a few reasons; larger bottles to quench thirst; tester bottle could be opened 2 or 3 times. Since the weather has been a little warmer around here(still not hot, but warmer), I decided to check for the first time after 36 hours. A little bit of a pop when opening, and some fizz rushing to the top for a bit of a foamy head. Not enough carbonation-seal it back up and wait it out. Another warm day, so I checked again about 12 hours later-still not enough fizz. I drank the rest of that tester bottle and vowed not to touch another one until tomorrow night(which will place it around 3 days to carbonate).
Also, upon 1.5 days of steeping and carbonation, the licorice root flavor is still very strong, but the other flavors are coming out slowly.
I will write a follow up post to see if allowing to sit in the refrigerator for a few days helps bring out the rest of the flavors present. I'm not ready to give up on this root beer yet-but I have some more ideas for other batches of root beer, and plan on trying every last one of them.
Making soda from scratch(as opposed to extract) is also spurring my creative juices, and I've had a few wild ideas for some other sodas. Posts documenting these weird soda experiments to follow.
Cheers!
Click here for the first follow-up post.
Click here for the second follow-up post

Tasting the new batch...

So, officially my wife tried the first bottle of cold soda. Problem was, she tried it only 2 days(Wednesday) after we first refrigerated, and minimum is 4 days. It opened with a bit of an overflow from all the carbonation, tasted sweet, yeasty(as homemade sodas tend to do), and very little like Root Beer. There was a hint of the flavor in the aftertaste, but merely a hint.
My wife's reaction? "This tastes like beer, but a lot better. If this is what beer tasted like, I'd drink it all of the time. So I guess it's a good thing that beer doesn't taste like this."
Oh, and yes, she did make some root beer bread. It was incredibly tasty, and maybe I can talk her into relating her experience on her own blog.
So, after telling her that it needs to age a little more, I went back to ignoring the soda for a few days. On Friday(the first day we should have opened it...), I pop open a bottle, and take a whiff...
It's...yeasty. That's the best way to describe it. It's tangy, sweet and slightly sourish. I take a drink-much like it was on the first try, but a little less yeasty then before. My wife has continued drinking it, and the girls have even shared a bottle or two. From our initial 28, I believe we are down to 15. My wife doesn't think it tastes as good now as it did the first few times she tried it, but I only detect more and more of the extract. I know from previous experience with other batches of homemade soda using extract that the longer the bottles sit, the better they are going to taste(up to a point), so the extract will just come out more and more. I just hope that it actually lasts long enough to get to that point.
So, let this be a lesson for all of you potential homemade soda makers out there...the longer you let a soda "age" in the refrigerator, the better it will taste when you get to it(at least a week is best). There's also no accounting for personal taste, however, so if you're more of a yeasty kind of person(as my wife is), you may enjoy it from an earlier point on.
I must go now, my oldest kitchen assistant has just requested breakfast and one of our sodas. I will keep you posted on this batch if it matures a little more. I'll do that if the soda does too.

Testing the most recent batch...

Let me start off by accounting for the length of the last post. Since I originally promised pictures, and provided none, I wanted to be as descriptive of the process as possible. 

With that being said...

This morning my two apprentice soda-makers accompanied on a car trip to a closed destination. Upon returning home, I was faced with a regular conflict in our household-Biggle had gone inside peacefully, but Middle was insistent upon staying in the car. So insistent, in fact, that she brought her knees to her chest and locked her arms around her legs to prevent me from even unbuckling her from her car seat. I left her door opened and went inside the house, explaining to my wife what was going on. She rolled her eyes and went about her business, and I returned to the vehicle.

I had an ace up my sleeve today(I usually don't-which results in me hanging out around the car out of her view, sporadically checking up on her to see if she's ready to come inside yet).

"Middle, do you want to come inside and test our soda? We'll see if it's ready to go in the fridge yet..."

She looked at me, slowly allowing a smile to creep across her face, and then said "Okay daddy". She dropped her legs and allowed me access to the buckles, freeing her from her self-sentenced, plastic-formed prison. She hops down out of the car and trots inside. 

I was planning on waiting until after dinner to check the sodas, but drastic times call for drastic measures.

I grab the not quite full bottle, grab the bottle opener and pop the top. Well, I didn't "pop" the top as much as I allowed the pressure inside the bottle enough breathing room to hurtle the cap through the air(I swear it hit the ceiling), along with a fountain of soda to rival the greatest Diet Coke/Mentos youtube videos. Half of the bottle was spent, leaving a trail about 2 feet long across the kitchen floor, foam in Middle's hair, and yeasty-goodness all over my pants. I did manage to minimize the damage by quickly getting it to the sink(next time, open over the sink...), but it was still quite the mess.

Time to sample! The prospect of drinking our own root beer was really what lured Middle out of the car, so it was time to come through on my end of the bargain. I poured the remaining contents into a nearby glass and took a quick swig while she looked away-yeasty, but delicious. It takes a few days in the fridge for the soda to actually taste like soda instead of yeast, so don't get discouraged if/when you make your own at home. The longer it sits in the fridge, the better it tastes.

Back on point-Middle enjoyed it, Biggle thought it was ok, and the wife said she felt like she was drinking sweet bread, and wondered if she could use our soda to make her own root beer bread(she's crafty like that).

So, all being satisfied with the level of carbonation attained in 2.5 days, we loaded the sodas into the fridge and continue our wait for homemade awesomeness.

As an aside, my pants still smell like rising yeast, and I keep licking my lips at the prospect of enjoying some of my wife's fantastic homemade bread fresh out of the oven. Unfortunately for me, there will be no oven warm bread unless I throw my unwashed khakis into the dryer and try to take a bite. 

Review: Gale's Root Beer

Recently I took a much needed break from work to enjoy an amazing vacation with my family. We packed up the car and the kids(the car was so full we had to throw one up on the luggage rack-she didn't seem to mind too much until it started raining...) and headed out on the open road. Day four of our five day trip landed us in Astoria, Or-a hop, skip and a jump away from Seaside-a beautiful little town with a nice stretch of beach and a downtown set up specifically for tourists(particularly those with children).
Anyways, after many stops at toy stores, sweets shops, and ice cream parlors, I ended up ducking into a place that boasted a large selection of "old-fashioned sodas". I knew I was in luck. I perused the five large refrigerated display stands stocked with a large variety of sodas, and made my first selection based upon a need to try an old-fashioned brew that had as of yet eluded my grasp- Moxie Original Elixir(review coming soon). However, for my next selection, I returned to the case dedicated exclusively(!) to Root Beers. There were Root Beers of many kinds, but most of them could be found in my local grocer's aisle. I narrowed it down to a few I had never seen before, and ultimately decided upon Gales Root Beer. The fun label made it pop out at me, and I picked it up to read the fine print- a sad but charming story of Chef Gale Gand moving to England and having her "root beer supplies dry up", and how she proceeded to get a terrier, name him "Rootie"(possibly because the dog tasted like Root Beer-the world shall never know), and then make do with the ingredients she had available to her at the time. Those ingredients? Cinnamon, Vanilla, and Ginger. Upon learning of a Root Beer that was formulated with those three delicious ingredients, I became excited, and my tongue began to dance in my mouth. So I scooped the bottle up, dropped the money on the counter($4.50 for two bottles of soda? Extortion!) and absconded with my find to the car.
Later on that evening I twisted off the cap, took a whiff(cinnamon with the slight hint of vanilla sweetness), and took a big gulp- that triggered my memory of my first attempt at making a soda recipe, and a return to that awful taste and feel of too much cinnamon. I took a few more swigs, and realized that the vanilla balanced it our, and the real sugar mellowed it out enough to make it mostly palatable. It wasn't nearly carbonated enough for the flavor, and just left me with regret of plopping down $2.25 on such a half-assed concoction. My soda-loving 3 year old even turned down the opportunity to have another sip, turning down the proffered drink with a confident "No thanks, dad. That soda is icky."
I also feel like I was deceived-there was not a single hint of ginger in this brew, not a faint hint of ginger's aroma nor slight bite of it's spice. It was just...not gingery at all. I feel that cutting back on the cinnamon and increasing the ginger would have saved it, but I still wouldn't call this a root beer if I had made it. A shitty cola, yes, but not a root beer.

Packaging- 3/5
Awesome Illustration, fascinating blurb, quite unique- but labelled as Root Beer when it so clearly is not.

Taste- 3/7
It wasn't completely awful, but I made only slightly worse on my first try, and this was supposedly formulated by a chef.

Aroma- 3/5
Cinnamony and sweet-gave me hopes of a carbonated Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Soda-Loving Daughter's assessment- Icky/3

Overall- 9(icky)/20

Buy Gale's Root Beer
Sub-par soda, but not the worst. Worst root beer? By far.

Soda vs. Pop vs. Other

An eternal debate in these United States. Is it soda? Is it pop? Is it coke?
A little bit of background. I grew up in Toledo, Ohio- the majority of people around me referred to it as "pop", and on as a generic term for "carbonated beverage" I did as well. Why would I or anyone else call it anything differently? It's what we heard all the time, and had no reason to call it anything else.
I, for the most part, however, called every soda by name-if it was a Coca-Cola, it was Coke, if it was Pepsi, it was a Pepsi. If it was Root Beer, I called it either "root beer", or (as necessary), by the specific brand. More often then not, I called each and every individual root beer by the specific brand I was referring to at the moment. I never asked my parents to get me "pop" when they went to the store, and I always specifically said I wanted "Dad's", "A&W", "IBC", "Barq's" or "Mug"(which my 3 year old daughter affectionately calls "doggy soda"). I was a huge Root Beer fanatic, and still am. I'm a huge purist as well, as I don't consider Birch Beer to be a type of Root Beer at all-too distinct of a flavor for me.
Anyways, back on topic. I started off calling it "pop", but after watching thousands of hours of television I noticed that the majority of people on screen referred to it as "soft drink"(something that is too general a descriptor for my needs), and/or "soda". Of course, I knew that it was "soda pop", but since I had always known "pop", it seemed natural to call it that. Then, when I was about 15 or 16 I had a friend that only called it "soda", and I slowly just made the transition. Low and behold, 7 or 8 years after that I ended up in Bellingham, Wa-where it is almost evenly referred to as "soda" or "pop"(breaking slightly more towards the "soda" category. Long story short, I end up "fitting in" regardless of my company.
Because of the differences in location, however, my daughters like to tell me that "Grandma Melody has Pop, and we have soda...I want "pop" like at Grandma Melody's!"
I even have relatives in the south who literally call it "sodey pop", and that bugs me to no end. It sounds even more hickish when spoken by someone without a redneck accent, however, so there is always that I guess.
In my mind, it doesn't really matter what you refer to it as in the states-everyone is going to understand you one way or the other, and only the most persnickety are going to call you out on it. Go with your gut and call it what you will. Either way, you will enjoy it(or not) all the same.