Who Made This Stuff? Maine Root Handcrafted Sodas
Website: www.maineroot.com
Where’d It Come From? Cost Plus World Market
Review Date: 11/10/09
Commentary: I have had this one in the fridge for quite a while now, just sitting there taunting me because I did not have time to do a proper review. Well, not any longer. I popped the top on the bottle and caught a slight wintergreeny aroma. The pour produced a small head, but it did not last very long. The first sip has a bit of a bite, but finishes with a nice creaminess. This one is not too sweet – a good balance of rooty-ness and sweetness. Carbonation is good. I am several sips in now, and the bubbles are holding up nicely.
This is a good root beer. I do not think it is going to end up at the top of my list, but it is a solid entry. It does not have a very strong aroma, which is a shame. I think a strong aroma probably could have helped this one score a couple extra points. The label indicates that this is sweetened with “organic cane juice.” Anyone know exactly what that is?
Speaking of the label…this label is quite busy. There is a bunch of text on there. It is a bit distracting, actually. There is a cool design of something that looks sort of like a root, but it is surrounded by way too much lowercased text for my tastes.
Label designs aside, I think this is a good brew so I will score it as………………………………….82.
This is an Austin, Tx brew, my local Root Beer (one of two, the other is an entry by the forgettable Barton Springs Soda Co: great guys, but waaaaaaay too much sugar in their drinks). I do like Maine Root. Cane Juice probably refers to evaporated cane juice which is essentially less processed sugar cane sugar. There are no real benefits other than the fact that it's not HFCF.
ReplyDeleteRecently, they've started providing fountain drinks to our local restaurants. Torchy's, Hopdoddy, Franklin BBQ. The fountain is very good, my "exception" to my one soda per week rule, and no where is it better than what comes out of Hopdoddy's fountains. I'm not sure what it is, but it certainly gains something at that burger joint.
I was actually curious, since I haven't been able to try many of these brews, what you thought of some of the commercial, nationwide brands. Your IBC's and Barq's of the world. It'd help know where you were coming from and figure out which I needed to keep an eye out for.