Barrel Brothers Root Beer

Ingredients: Water, High Fructose Corn Sweetener, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Quillaja Extract, Caramel Color, Phosphoric Acid, Sodium Benzoate and Potassium Sorbate as Preservatives.

Smell: When you open this up, you get a strong whiff of vanilla, but it doesn't overpower the rest of the natural root beer flavor. Very good and enjoyable.

Head: As you can see, not exceptionally tall or anything, but it lasted through the drink and I even had a good foam at the bottom of the glass when I finished up.

Flavor: My first impression was that this was going to be a solid B, maybe even an A. The mix of vanilla and sassafras was so balanced, I really enjoyed it. But... then suddenly as the first couple of drinks ended I noticed a funky after taste. Just stale, not sure how else to describe it. Even now, I still have this weird mixture that I can only describe as stale vanilla in my mouth.

Overall: Sadly, the aftertaste knocked this down a whole grade, otherwise I would have given it a B at the very least. But the first few sips are really glorious...

Purchased from Alsip Home & Nurse

Fitz's Root Beer

Ingredients: Filtered Carbonated Water, All Natural Pure Cane Sugar, Natural Flavors, Caramel Color, Vanillin, Sodium Benzoate (preservers freshness) and Citric Acid.

Smells: The first whiff of this gave me the impression that I was going to get strong anise flavored root beer, so needless to say I wasn't too excited. But there were hints of sweetness.

Head: Started dissipating immediately and thought for sure it was going to go all the way to the top, but it instead stopped right where you see it there, and stayed for the duration of the drink.

Flavor: First drink actually surprised me, yes, there was an anise flavor to it, but it was mostly masked by a good sweetness. By the second drink it was all sassafras and vanilla. Then the third drink was the last one, and I wish I had a little bit more...

Overall: Went from being mildly disappointed to really surprised. It's been a few minutes and I find myself craving more. Maybe this one just caught me on a good night. Either way, solid B, didn't rock my world, but was very good.

Purchased from: Given to me by a friend.

McCutcheon's Root Beer

Ingredients: Triple Filtered Carbonated Water, Pure Cane Sugar, Natural And/Or Artificial Flavors, Caramel Color, Citric Acid, Sodium Benzoate (Preserves Freshness)

Smells: Smells wonderful. Sort of a creamy and sweet scent, just barely a hint of vanilla, but mostly just a very sweet sassafras scent.

Head: Standard, nice and tall to start art with, and a little top lasts for most of the drink.

Flavor: Yummy sweet flavor, almost like A&W or a Barqs some sweetened with corn syrup. Rare for something made with Cane Sugar. There are hints of vanilla, but they're almost masked by the rest of it, but the rest of it's so good, I didn't mind.

Overall: I was surprised by this one. It was off to the side on it's own shelf at the store I get my root beer from normally. I assume it was from a vendor or something? Either way, it was really good! Maybe I'm soft since I'm taking longer breaks in between bottles, but I recommend this one!

Purchased from Alsip Home & Nurse

Jack Black's Dead Red Root Beer

Ingredients: Carbonated Water, Cane Sugar, Caramel Color, Caffeine, Brazilian Guarana, Sodium Benzoate (to preserve freshness), Citric Acid, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Red #40

Smells: I'm so rusty, I almost forgot to take whiff of this one. Luckily it had a strong enough scent to remind me that I judge the smell. The scent was fairly strong with anise.

Head: Pretty tall as you can see, doesn't last excessively long so you can start enjoying your drink even sooner. Average length really, but some froth does stay through the entire drink.

Flavor: Despite the strong anise smell it had, I was surprised that the taste wasn't there too strongly. In fact this one had a creamy sort of quality too it, but also lacked a vanilla flavor. Mostly what you get is an old fashioned sassafras flavor.

Overall: It's nice to come back to this after a while and get something that's actually pretty basic to reset myself. I did notice that in the ingredients there was Caffeine and Guarana which is usually found in energy drinks, but they didn't really effect the flavor at all, unless perhaps they hid any anise or vanilla flavors, which would be sad.

Purchased from Alsip Home & Nursery