A Root Beer Review website and blog from a British perspective
Normally I buy root beers in threes from my local Cyber Candy shop, here in Brighton but the shelves were nearly bare after the Easter break. No doubt all the visiting foreign students were spending the Euros trialling root beer or perhaps my blog is having an effect on the local economy (in my dreams anyway).
So this Spring Grove was only one of two I bought with a Hosmer White Birch Beer - review coming soon. Drinking straight out of the bottle and the fizziness hits you first and I expected quite a flavourless root beer. A few more swigs and a good head starts appearing through the clear glass bottle. This makes the taste a little creamy, hints of vanilla and then your teeth alert you to the pure cane sugar. Normally I wouldn't recognise the sugary-ness but after checking the bottle's ingredients I spot there's actually a mixture of cane sugar and corn syrup. Its not as bad as Daddies root beer but I certainly wouldn't drink more than one bottle a day otherwise my dentist would have a heart attack. Towards the end of the bottle the caramel flavouring comes through reminding me of warmed up Coca Cola when your molars feel they have a sheen of sugary coating.
Whilst I appreciate the full-headed, creaminess this is just a little too sweet for me.
7/10
With my local source of root beer running low after Easter I had little choice so opted for this White Birch beer from Hosmer Mountain. Hosmer Mountain's Sarsaparilla was my highest rated drink since starting this blog so had high hopes. However, the Lurch Birch I had previously wasn't the different taste I was expecting.
To recap, Birch beer does taste similar to root beer using herb extracts usually birch bark. The best way I describe this is comparing this with chocolate. Root beer is like good, quality milk chocolate and birch beer having less flavour. This White Birch beer is like white chocolate i.e. sweeter than milk chocolate but also, for me sickly sweet after a few gulps. It also reminds me of cheap vanilla ice cream at times but never really satisfies me.
I rate this White Birch beer:
6/10
Birch drinks are new to me though are displayed in the same section as root beers. Couldn't resist this particular birch drink being named after the supermarket trolley boy / simple-minded killer in the film Hot Fuzz. I was expecting a different taste to root beer, though naively expected a woody flavour like some bourbons. Instead I got a very ordinary root beer, slightly caramel but nothing special.
Shame really as I was hoping to discover something very new.
Another Cyber Candy purchase I award this 'left coast recipe' (as per the label):
7/10
