Francis Hartridge's celebrated root beer

Hooray! Let's celebrate this celebrated, English made root beer that's a reasonable price! But is it any good?

Bought from a 24 hour super corner shop in Brighton called Easy Hours at £1.10 its competitively priced. According to the website Hartridge's is stocked in places I usually avoid i.e. Asda, JD Weatherspoons and Nisa as well as some others I've not heard of. Bravo to Asda for stocking this and their cheap but not so cheerful Carters root beer. With Tesco selling A & W and even Boylans in some stores plus Waitrose selling that Aussie licorice faux-root beer it just leaves Sainsburys to man up and bring us an alternative.

First impressions from the reading the label and alarm bells are ringing. There's 37g or 31% of your daily recommended amount of sugar but checking a bottle of Pepsi and there's the 2% less sugar so maybe not such a big thing.

The taste however is not root beer or sarsaparilla as stated on the label. This is more like Bundaberg's root beer with a licorice flavour. Hats off for a UK company to produce a root beer but I think they need to do some research and actually taste some real American sarsaparilla. I suspect it'll be down to ingredient availability outside the USA or they've only tasted Bundaberg's.

I rate this UK root beer:

6/10

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Dominion root beer review

The kind people at Heathwick contacted me and gave me a bottle of this Dominion root beer. So reviewing a freebie would be a little awkward if it didn't taste that good then I'd have to come up with some rubbish text. However, I can honestly say this is one of the best I've so far. No bull, the total truth m'lord.

To be honest I'm sure I've had it before as a 'Brown Cow' (root beer ice cream float) in Meat Liquor, Brighton - one of the coolest burger resturants (but no longer sell it). It has a clean natural taste, not sickly sweet but with a natural sweetness which I'm guessing is the honey. I enjoyed it so mych that I regretted drinking so fast and wished they bottled it in 500ml size. There's no horrible high fructose corn syrup and no caffeine either.

No caffeine

No high fructose corn syrup

Where to buy it - restaurants

Heathwick tell me its sold mainly to the trade to restaurants (£2.95 a bottle) so try the following:

• The Chicago Ribshack (Stratford, Southampton, Leeds and Clapham)
• Bodean's BBQ (Soho, Fulham, Clapham, Tower Hill, Balham)
• Good Life Diner (8 of them in London only)

Where to buy it - shops

For those more eager you could try Beers of Euope website which sells Dominion root beer at a bargain £1.28 a 355ml bottle. The only catch is the postage at a whooping £7.49 for any order. So it makes sense to order a crate for £30 for 24 which makes it £1.56 a bottle. Still good value if you consider good gourmet root beers are at least £1.79 or more. Annoyingly, their website does not offer indvidual web page links so use their search to find it.

For more information on the brewer have look at F&D Brewing (US) and the Dominion root beer web page for the ingredients.

I rate this:

9/10

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Sioux City root beer review

Nice to be back on a real root beer with real ingredients. Sioux City is made with cane sugar and none of that high fructose corn syrup. This is another brand owned by the White Rock Products Corporation who also produce the Old Brooklyn Williamsberg root beer which I recommend (scored 8/10).

For a bit cult product placement, Sioux City's sarsaparilla gets mentioned in The Big Lebowski as seen here:


Its a good root beer and better than the mass-produced brands more commonly available in the UK (originally bought from American Soda for £1.99). If you want a no-nonsense, simple root beer then this is a good example. However, there's nothing memorable about it compared to the Old Brooklyn counter-part.

I'm being generous and rating this root beer:

8/10

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Day's root beer review

Another mass-produced root beer from Day's made in Springfield (unfortunately, no Simpsons connection here - apparently Oregan gets that nod). Bought from American Soda for 99p a can. Love the 'Did you know' quote from the American Soda website for Day's which basically means that the founder was a petty thief:

"The Day's Beverage Company was founded by Freddy Day after he was caught stealing from a soda delivery truck! Given the choice of facing the police or helping out with the deliveries, Freddy chose to help the driver. His passion for soda was born and a few years later in 1946 he founded the Day's Beverage Company and began manufacturing and distributing his soda throughout Philadelphia. For 20 years Day's thrived before Freddy's death. The company was resurrected in 1996 by his sons David and Fred Junior and has been thriving ever since."

Other Day's products include a Champagne Cola, Blue Pop and Mountain Pop as well as many fruity-flavoured fizzy drinks.

Their root beer is very similar to other popular brands like A & W, Mug and Barq's, but just a little bit more sweeter. These mass-produced root beers will be just down to availability and convenience.

I rate this:

7/10

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MUG root beer review

Mug is a mass-produced brand by Pepsi so its easy to compare this to A&W root beer. The last time I drank it was waiting for a helicopter flight along Manhattan Island whilst on holiday in New York (2006). It was a special American moment and possibly the second time to have had root beer after McDonald's in the UK stopped selling it.

The taste is so close to A & W I can't really tell the difference. I would love to do a blind taste test with Mug, A & W, Barq's and to be reviewed Day's. Shame its full High Fructose Corn Syrup but for mass-produced root beers under a £1 a can there is no real alternative.

Overall, a good tasting, very sweet, tooth decaying root beer I rate as:

7/10

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Psyche root beer review

I don't do diet drinks but in the name of root beer research (and the cheap promotional price of 49p a can from American Soda) I realise there are some people out there who want to avoid sugar at times.

From the start I know I'm the wrong gender for this drink from the design and branding. Disappointed it had nothing to do with the PJ and Duncan song, Ready to Rhumble but instead Psyche is pronounced Sy-kee and is the goddess of purity who married Eros. (PJ and Duncan are now Ant and Dec btw)

If you love Diet Coke, wet t-shirts on guys and like trying to injury poor gardners just trying to mow public lawns and parks then this is the drink for you. The root flavour comes through ok and is passable even ok to good. Good to see that the company behind it, White Rock Beverages also produce a top 10 favourite of mine, Old Brooklyn Williamsburg Root Beer.

I can imagine after a hard session of yoga this would be the perfect drink if you were craving root beer however water's probably the best thing to be honest.

I rate this 6.5/10 (7 for value but 6 for taste)

Virgil's Root Beer review

Being priced 20-30p more than the other gourmet root beers and with Cyber Candy quoting "one of the best root beers in the world" Virgil's had a lot to live up to. It's a good natural tasting root beer - one for the true root beer fan. You can certainly taste the vanilla and a hint of licorice if your senses are on full alert. However, for me, the vanilla cream taste just tips it over a tiny bit too much after a few mouthfuls. This is a good root beer but at the price there are better ones to buy.

8/10