My Favorite Root Beers

I have always liked root beer since I was a young man. I still like to drink a good root beer today every now and then. Here are some of my favorite root beers that I drink. Some of these are not the easiest to find, but thanks to the internet you can find most of them.

Hires Root Beer was invested by a Philadelphia in 1876 by a pharmacist named Charles Elmer Hires. This root beer is considered to be the oldest continuously made soft drink in the United States. It usually has a very thick head of foam. When you first make your pour it is very common for a typical sized glass to have it more than half full of foam. It has a very dark appearance and a nice mellow taste to it. Root Beer typically has a cherry flavor to it, but I have found that Hires does not overdue the cherry compared to some other brands. It smells like root beer. There really is not another way to describe it. It currently is made by The Dr. Pepper Snapple Group

I have never heard of a restaurant being named after a beverage, but A&W Root Beer is the exception to that rule. In addition to a pretty good root beer they also have a variety of restaurants in parts of the United States. Most of them are set up to be like a fast food joint with either hot dogs or burgers but some are set up more like dinners. It was first made in California in 1919 by Roy Allen. He initially set up as a booth at parades and sold the drink for five cents. They were the first to have a popular diet version of the root beer in 1974 initially marketed as sugar free. It is probably the best tasting diet root beer that there is. It is not quit as foamy as hires or as dark. The taste is a tad lighter than and not quite as much of a bite as others. It does not have as strong of a root beer smell as other brands do. Ironically today after various mergers and acquisitions it is also owned by The Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. In 2008 they introduced a shelf stable version of the root beer float. I have tried the root beer floats and find them horrible. I personally make my own.

Barqs is the third brand that I will talk about. It uses the moniker that "Barqs has bite". Barqs was first made in 1890 in Louisiana down around the French Quarter of New Orleans by Edward and Gaston Barqs. Barqs is a dark root beer and has a very tangy taste. This smells a bit of a cinnamon taste to me. This is the only root beer discussed that has caffeine in it. It foams like most other colas and does not give much of a head like other root beers. There are differences in ingredients that are the cause for this. Today it is owned by The Coca-Cola Company.

Those are my favorite three. I like Hires the best, but since I drink more diet these days I drink A&W most often.

Sources

Various taste tests over the course of my life.

http://www.coca-cola.com/index.jsp

http://www.drpepper.com/