This review will focus on Hank’s gourmet root beer.

Branding

Hank’s uses a raised (almost embossed) sticker for its label, which helps it stand out on the shelf. It’s very shiny and eye-catching, with the drink name easy to read.

You might get tripped up if they line up several of their dark drinks next to each other, but otherwise I don’t think you’d have any trouble finding it.

Taste and Ingredients

Hank’s is one of the few bottled brands that has a twist-off cap, which is nice if you don’t have a bottle opener handy.

The initial sniff reveals a root beer with a fairly heavy vanilla scent. The first taste also has a strong vanilla flavor mixed into the root beer, along with something else that makes the profile more complex. I suspect that ingredient may be yucca extract, since I don’t see it in many root beers, and it is described as a mild, earthy flavor. Interestingly, the ingredient list doesn't explicitly call out vanilla.

Hank’s goes down nice and smooth. I didn’t feel like it was over-carbonated like Barq’s or A&W tends to be.

The Wrap Up

I really enjoyed Hank’s Root Beer. I thought the flavor profile was good and fuller than the usual mainstream brands, without going so far afield that it doesn’t taste like root beer at all.

I also liked that Hank went with a small list of ingredients that didn’t feel as artificial as some brands do. I found my bottle at a Hy-Vee in the Des Moines, IA, area. Hank’s can also be purchased on Amazon. If you get a chance, you should check it out.

Branding

Sioux City drinks go for a Wild West look with a cowboy entering a saloon in this case. They are fairly recognizable if you know what you’re looking for, although the Sioux City part of the logo is much larger than the drink name, so be sure to check what you’re getting.

Taste and Ingredients

Sadly, Sioux City doesn’t have a twist-off cap, so bring a bottle opener when you crack this drink open. The first smell is faint and kind of reminds me of vanilla or root beer.

This birch beer is red rather than the dark brown most root beers are. In my experience, other birch beer brands are also red, although I think I have had one that was clear as well.

The taste is kind of a vanilla creme type drink. It reminds me of root beer, but doesn’t really taste like it. You might find that it’s closer to a creme soda. The flavor is good though. The drink doesn’t have much carbonation, but that’s okay.

The Wrap Up

Sioux City’s Birch Beer was the first type of birch beer I had ever had many years ago. It’s still good, and it’s also the only one I have found easily in Iowa.

If you have never had a birch beer before, you should check this one out!

Related Reviews

• Sioux City Root Beer

For this review, I am focusing on their low-calorie root beer.

Branding

Sprecher always uses a griffin-like silhouette for their logo, and their 45-calorie version doesn’t deviate from this tradition. If you are looking for a Sprecher drink, you'll spot it quickly because of its bright colors and distinctive logo.

Taste and Ingredients

The Sprecher’s 45-calorie root beer smells the same as the regular, which isn’t much of a surprise. At first, it tastes very similar to the regular root beer.

Sprecher tends to be pretty flat, though, and I thought I tasted an artificial aftertaste. However, it’s not like a stevia aftertaste, so that’s good anyway. I believe Sprecher is the only brewery I have ever seen that uses a fire for their brewing. You probably won’t be able to tell that just by taste, though.

Sprecher uses regular glucose syrup rather than high-fructose corn syrup, in combination with raw honey, to keep their soda low-calorie.

I liked the flavoring here even with the low carbonation. I don’t know from taste alone whether this will create a head, but I doubt it will be very foamy.

The Wrap Up

Sprecher does a good job with this low-calorie root beer. I am typically not a fan of diet sodas or sparkling waters, but this one is actually pretty good. If you want a root beer with fewer calories and good taste, this one may be for you. It’s also cool that Sprecher made their drink with raw honey and still kept the calories so low.

Other Sprecher Reviews

• Sprecher Maple Root Beer

In this review, I will be looking at the Root Beer Float pop.

Branding

Bloom has a distinctive logo and uses many different colors for its cans and mixes. Because of this, I don’t feel like they stand out as much as the drink; while pretty, they tend to be pastels, and many other sparkling waters do the same.

On the other hand, the logo is obvious, and the art is attractive. I will note that when I first grabbed the drink, I thought it was just Bloom’s root beer rather than a root beer float.

Taste and Ingredients

When you first pop the can, you may find the smell is not really of root beer at all. I am not good at describing smells, but it’s not what I expected.

The color of the drink is kind of like dirty water. It doesn’t look like a dark soda, but it’s not clear either.

Amazingly enough, the taste is actually quite close to a root beer float. It is very creamy, without having any head (i.e. foamy). However, the Stevia gives it a funny aftertaste that I didn’t care for.

Besides the Stevia, they included pear juice, as well as an unnamed fruit and veggie juice, which also gives it a bit of an odd taste too.

The Wrap Up

Bloom’s Root Beer Float is far from the worst prebiotic or probiotic root beer flavor I have tried. In fact, it’s probably the best sparkling root beer-like drink I have had so far. However, I wouldn't buy it again.

Give it a try, though, if you are looking for a drink with fewer calories or just feeling adventurous.

Other Prebiotic Root Beer

• Slice Root Beer

• Olipop Root Beer

Branding

A&W's branding is a woodsy barrel background with the A&W logo overlaid on top, and a bit of foam coming over the edge of the barrel. It is very recognizable.

You probably recognize it even if you didn’t realize it was a root beer!

Taste and Ingredients

Very traditional-smelling root beer. The taste is slightly artificial and overly sweet, but it's also what most people probably think of when they think of root beer. The carbonation is noticeable, and we all know that when poured into a glass, A&W tends to be frothy.

Barq’s, Mug, and A&W all rely on high fructose corn syrup for their sweetener and they use a lot of artificial ingredients as well.

Still, the drink tastes decent. I personally prefer some of the more pure varieties of root beer; however, A&W is probably one of the easiest types of root beer you can find.

The Wrap Up

A&W used to be my favorite root beer mostly because I didn’t know there were do many others out there. However, A&W still remains one of my favorite mainstream root beers, perhaps out of nostalgia if nothing else. A&W is also a good way to introduce people to root beer and maybe get them to try other brands!

Regardless, if you have somehow never tried A&W, you should give it a try!

Henry Weinhard also makes Vanilla Cream, Black Cherry Cream, and Orange Cream sodas as well.

Branding

The branding of the Henry Weinhard drinks goes for a dark brown bottle, although the six-pack had brown on the large sides and white on the ends.

The designer uses a sketch of Henry Weinhard himself as part of the logo, and the box includes some information about the brand.

Since I had never seen this brand before, it stood out to me. I think the large lettering on the box helped!

Taste and Ingredients

Not all root beer smells nice or even has an odor at all. However, Henry Weinhard’s root beer smells like a root beer should. I found that it also has a nice, well-rounded flavor and tastes smooth and creamy.

This is also one of the foamiest drinks I have ever poured. Be careful if you don’t drink it directly from the bottle, as you may cause your cup to overflow!

The ingredients list is nice and short and made up of mostly natural ingredients too!

The Wrap Up

Henry Weinhard makes a good root beer. The store I found it in didn’t seem to have any of their other flavors, so I don’t know how hard those are to find. If you live on the West Coast of the USA, you should give this root beer a try! Just be careful if you pour it out.

Moab Brewery also has its own line of drinks, as well as a small store of various merchandise.

Branding

Since the root beer is on tap, there really isn’t any branding. However, here is the store’s logo:

Taste and Ingredients

The Moab Brewery root beer drinks very smoothly. It has a good root beer flavor, with maybe a hint of licorice. I thought the drink was well-rounded overall. There wasn’t a ton of carbonation, but it also wasn’t flat either.

Unfortunately, Moab Brewery doesn’t publish the ingredients list for their drinks on their website (at the time of writing), as far as I can see, but I suspect they used cane sugar for the sweetener since that seems to be the most common for small-batch or craft root beers.

The Wrap Up

Moab Brewery’s homemade root beer was pretty good. Their food was even better. I had low expectations for the food, but it turned out to be the best I had for the entire trip.

I would go back and have more of their root beer if I were in the area again.

Sparkling Ice has lots of other flavors, so if you don’t like root beer, you can try one of their other flavors.

Branding

If you’re looking for Sparkling Ice, you will notice the brand. Often, the Sparkling Ice brand uses plastic bottles for their drinks, but for their Caffeine line, they use an aluminum can.

The Sparkling Ice logo is nice and large, but I actually found it hard to tell that this was root beer. I only looked at it because of the color of the can.

Taste and Ingredients

Sparkling Ice Root Beer has less than 2% of fruit and vegetable juice, but you can’t tell it has any. When you pop the tab, the smell of root beer is very faint.

Interestingly enough, there is a definite root beer flavor to this drink. I usually don’t think sparkling water has much flavor at all, but they did an okay job at it. The drink has more carbonation than I expected as well.

However, the root beer flavor itself is kind of bleh. I didn’t really care for it. The after taste is kind of yuck too, but that may be the sucralose. I don’t usually like the artificial sweeteners very much.

The Wrap Up

The end result is that I can see why people like sparkling water as an alternative to a soda. They certainly don’t have the calories or the sugar. But they also aren’t as good, at least from my experience.

However, Sparkling Ice is better than most of the sparkling waters I have had, and it’s definitely better than the probiotic root beers, too.

Casey’s has several other soda flavors to try as well. You can find Casey’s in many Midwest states in the USA.

Branding

The branding is pretty muted overall. You get the Casey’s logo along with the flavor underneath it in white lettering. The label itself is red with a little brown. The only reason it stands out is if you are looking for the Casey’s section of drinks or because the text is smaller than most of its competition.

Taste and Ingredients

The smell when one twists off the cap of the root beer bottle is sweet and smells much like vanilla. The flavor is surprisingly its own. I expected it to be extremely generic, but it has a wider flavor profile than I thought it would.

The drink is ultimately smooth going down but has more carbonation than many of the Orca-branded root beers I have had lately. The taste is definitely root beer along with some other herbs, probably a mix of licorice, caramel, and maybe vanilla or similar.

The Wrap Up

Casey’s did an alright job. One of the perks of private labels is that they usually price their products lower than the competition, and in this case, the flavor is good enough that I can see myself grabbing this over Barq’s or A&W just because I want to save some money while still getting the flavor I am yearning for.

Spring Grove also has several other soda flavors, including Rhu-berry, sour grapes, orange, etc.

Branding

Spring Grove doesn’t really go for branding. It’s basically a semi-cursive writing of their name on a dark brown bottle plus a woodland-type scene underneath

There is a little color on the silver cap though. On the other hand, the understated look may help them to be noticed since most brands go for bright or garish colors.

Taste and Ingredients

Spring Grove smells kind of minty and I found the drink itself to be minty too. However, the ingredients list doesn’t mention anything about mint or really any unusual flavorings at all.

The only unusual thing in the ingredients is that they use both cane sugar and corn syrup for the sweetener, which I don’t think I have ever seen with any other root beer.

Anyway, you do get some root beer flavor here, but the mint (or whatever it is) is probably about 50% of the flavor, so it’s definitely kind of weird. The aftertaste is not great either.

I found the drink to be pretty flat, but their website says it will foam up over ice cream and I would assume the same to be true over ice.

The Wrap Up

Spring Grove at least puts out a different kind of root beer than other brands. It’s certainly not like the mainstream ones anyway. However, that may put you off if you expect it to taste like most root beer.

If you feel adventurous though, you should give it a try!

Sprecher uses a signature fire-brewing process that caramelizes flavors in a gas-fired kettle for unmatched depth and smoothness.

Note: Sprecher bottles require a bottle opener. However, they also offer a canned version of most of their sodas, so if you can go that route as well.

Branding

Sprecher uses a maple leaf in addition to their regular Sprecher font and red lettering for their logo. It kind of reminds me of a wine bottle’s look.

Here’s what it looks like:

Interestingly, Sprecher eschews their label on the bottle cap.

Taste and Ingredients

While Sprecher’s regular root beer is made with honey, this maple version skips the honey and uses maple instead, along with glucose syrup. I’m not sure if the standard root beer also includes glucose syrup or not, so stay tuned for a future review where we will find out together!

Sprecher’s maple root beer is very smooth and creamy. But smooth with root beer also means very flat, which is the case here. If you are looking for carbonation, you should skip this one as it’s almost non-existent.

The maple flavoring is strong and seems to fight the root beer for dominance. To me, it seemed about a 50/50 split in that respect. I found it a little strange on the first swallow, but it’s certainly drinkable.

I prefer vanilla to maple in my root beer though.

The Wrap Up

In general, this is a decent drink. While I don’t think I’ll be drinking this particular Sprecher’s root beer again anytime soon, it’s not bad either. However, there are many other root beers that are superior.

If you happen to have a Hy-Vee or Menards near you, you should give this root beer a try!

Branding

Red Arrow’s branding is a distinctive white and red. It might not exactly jump out if put next to Dr. Pepper, but when the bottles are among other root beers, it may stand out from the crowd.

You can see what it looks like in general in the following photos:

Orca skipped the logo for the bottle cap and went with their own branding there.

Taste and Ingredients

When you first twist off the metal cap on this root beer, you will find it has a pleasant aroma. Your first sip, though, is of a very flat and smooth brew. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would have said the drink had expired; it was so flat.

Anyway, the drink is kind of creamy and I thought it tasted a bit like vanilla. However, the ingredients state that Red Arrow contains wintergreen and licorice extract. I didn’t find either of those flavors very strong, and if they existed, they were quite subtle.

Here’s the full ingredients list:

The Wrap Up

In general, I found Red Arrow to be decent. It’s not great because I expect root beer to have more fizz and perhaps a slightly stronger profile overall, but it’s not bad.

I have found Red Arrow in several different locations, so perhaps it will be easier for you to find it as well. If you try it, be sure to let me know your thoughts.

Related Drinks

Here are some of Orca’s other root beer-related drinks:

• O-so Butterscotch root beer

• Bedford’s Root Beer

• Old Red Eye Root Beer

• Earp’s Original Sarsaparilla

• Brownie Caramel Cream Root Beer

In general, I have found their beverages to be quite good and a decent price in Iowa, at least.

Branding

Sioux City goes for an understated brand and uses a cowboy in a red shirt and white cowboy hat as its logo.

While the look doesn’t bother me a bit, it also doesn’t really stand out from the crowd either. I would appreciate some more information about the drink on the bottle as well.

Taste and Ingredients

Sioux City’s brand all have twist-top caps, so you don’t need a bottle opener. However, you may want to use a napkin or your shirt to twist off the cap, as the metal can be kind of sharp.

The root beer has an interesting, complex flavor profile. I would describe it as a mix of vanilla or caramel or both plus the root beer flavor. I found the drink very smooth and flat, with little carbonation.

In other words, Sioux City doesn’t have the sharp, strong bite of Barq’s nor the creaminess of A&W, but it sits somewhere comfortably in between the two.

The Wrap Up

I liked Sioux City Root Beer. As I said at the beginning, the brand is easy to find and affordable here in Iowa. You can usually find it in singles or in packs of four at Hy-Vee.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Let’s get to it!

Branding

From a branding standpoint, I feel like Brownie is very olde school. They have a drawing of a kid’s head in a red, off-white, and blue logo.

It’s not a bad logo, and there’s not really anything like it, so it stands out in that respect. But it also doesn’t look modern or catchy. I kind of like it, regardless.

Taste and Ingredients

Like all Orca sodas, this bottle has a twist top, so you won’t be needing a bottle opener here. The first whiff is of a strong caramel with maybe a hint of vanilla or root beer.

The flavoring is very heavy in the caramel department. So much so that you don’t really get much root beer flavor at all. Brownie is also one of the flattest carbonated beverages I have ever had. It drinks smoothly, but almost no head or bubbles to speak of.

The ingredients list is pretty small and easy to read as well:

The Wrap Up

Brownie is a funny root beer. It tastes more like a caramel drink in a brown bottle rather than a root beer with a hint of caramel. While it not a bad drink, I wouldn’t purchase it if I wanted root beer. On the other hand, Brownie has a nice flavor and I don’t mind drinking it.

If you like artificial caramel flavoring or just want to try all the root beers you can, you should give this one a try!

Related Drinks

Here are some of Orca’s other root beer-related drinks:

• O-so Butterscotch root beer

• Bedford’s Root Beer

• Old Red Eye Root Beer

• Earp’s Original Sarsaparilla

Branding

The Earp Sarsaparilla bottle uses an image of a cowboy with pistols drawn for its logo. The image is probably supposed to evoke the infamous Wyatt Earp from the American Old West.

You don’t see cowboys on root beer very often, so I think this works. The cap on the bottle is also kind of fun, with a kind of sheriff-type star on it.

Taste and Ingredients

I didn’t notice this, but Orca’s caps are all supposed to twist off without a bottle opener. I opened this one with my bottle opener because I didn’t realize that.

The sarsaparilla smells like a nice root beer upon opening. I thought it had a good, strong flavor, but very little carbonization. Orca says that Earp’s a popular choice for root beer floats and I could see that since the flavor is strong.

In fact, I would say that Earp is similar to Barq’s but without the foam and caffeine.

The Wrap Up

Orca makes a lot of novelty drinks and they tend to cost more than other brands. Expect to pay anywhere from $2.79 to $5 per bottle. I have never seen their drinks sold in sets, so you’re not likely to get a bulk discount anywhere.

However, the soda is quite good and definitely worth trying. If you happen to come across it, you should grab a bottle. Let me know what you think if you do.

Related Drinks

Here are some of Orca’s other root beer-related drinks:

• O-so Butterscotch root beer

• Bedford’s Root Beer

• Old Red Eye Root Beer

Other Sarsaparillas

• Jackson Hole Soda Snake River Sarsaparilla

• Sunset Sarsaparilla

Let’s see how Old Red Eye turns out!

Branding

Old Red Eye goes for a bold red label with a somewhat cartoony bull in its logo. For some reason, they chose to put the Orca logo on the cap rather than keeping with the root beer’s name, which is a departure from some of their other root brews.

I have seen this bottle in a few places so you might be able to find it as well. Mug has a reddish look to its labeling as well, but it doesn’t go for a full red logo like Old Red Eye does.

Taste and Ingredients

Old Red Eye is caffiene free and gluten free. They also use pure cane sugar as their sweetener, and the ingredients are nice and short.

When you first open the bottle, you get a pretty standard root beer aroma. The flavor reminds me mostly of Mug. It doesn’t really have any unique flavor of its own, with maybe just a hint of licorice, even though that’s not listed as an ingredient.

The drink isn’t super fizzy or frothy, but it’s also not creamy like A&W or some other brands.

The Wrap Up

I enjoyed Old Red Eye root beer. It has a nice flavor, though it doesn’t really distinguish itself from the competition. You can find similar flavors at a lesser price by purchasing something like Mug, but if you care about drinks that aren’t overly processed with lots of unpronounceable words, then you’ll probably prefer Old Red Eye.

Branding

Dog n Suds has a cartoon dog serving hot dogs and root beer on its logo. In fact, if you go to their website, you can see that their logo is the same as it was over 70 years ago.

This classic look helps them to stand out from other drinks, primarily because of the bold colors, but also because almost no other soda companies use cartoon characters in their logos.

Taste and Ingredients

When you first open the bottle, you get a whiff of licorice and maybe a hint of vanilla. The soda seems to go down smoothly without lots of fizz.

The taste is once again not the mainstream root beer flavor, but it’s similar and pretty good. You will likely enjoy it more as you drink more of the root beer.

Dog n Suds actually reminds me or Dang Root Beer, but with a milder flavor.

The Wrap Up

I enjoyed Dog n Suds root beer. While it may be a throwback to an older flavor, that doesn’t make it bad. In fact, I thought it was pretty good and comparable to Dang! root beer.

Give it a try if you see it and if you have ever been to the restaurant, let me know!

Branding

I feel like Dang! does a better job in the branding department than many of the independent root beers. Mostly this is because it uses louder colors and the orange just pops really well compared with the dark brown of the root beer itself.

Taste and Ingredients

When I first opened the Dang! root beer, I didn’t care for the smell. While the ingredients don’t mention licorice, I am not sure how else to describe the odor.

Regardless, when you take your first sip of Dang, the taste doesn’t really seem like root beer. It’s certainly “rootsy,” and it’s also more complex than an A&W or a Barq’s tends to be, though.

The root beer is not creamy. There is no vanilla. There is some carbonation, perhaps more than A&W, but without being foamy.

Interestingly, I found that I enjoyed the flavor more the more I drank it, which is not always the case with these more complex-tasting root beers.

The Wrap Up

Dang! is a pretty good root beer. If you are looking for something generic, you probably won’t care for Dang, though. This drink doesn’t have that familiar root beer flavor, but it does have a nice one.

Give it a try, if you can find it near you.

Jones is a pretty popular brand with a wide variety of flavors. They also put out special flavors at various times of the year, such as their famous Thanksgiving Holiday Pack.

Let’s see how their root beer shakes out.

Branding

Jones has their own unique look. The photos on their bottles change, but since they usually use black-and-white photos, the “look” is mostly the same with their logo on top, the random photo, and then the flavor underneath.

I believe the photos were submitted by fans and chosen by the company. I’m not sure if they still do that.

Here are some photos of the bottle:

Taste and Ingredients

Jones has a twist-off bottle cap, which is somewhat unusual for a glass bottle. The smell of the root beer is subtle, but it exists. Some root beers seem to have no smell whatsoever. I didn’t taste any licorice-flavoring, but their may be a hint of vanilla even though it’s not listed as being in there.

The root beer taste itself is pretty flat, but smooth. I wouldn’t call it creamy exactly, but it’s got a nice flavor. There aren’t any unusual or strong flavors though. Barq’s tends to be a strong root beer, and even A&W tends to be a bit stronger than this.

However, I rather liked this one.

Let’s take a look at the ingredients:

Looks like Jones went with cane sugar and while the list of ingredients is small, they have more strangely named ingredients than some of the other brands reviewed on this site.

The Wrap Up

Jones root beer is pretty good. I can’t really say it has a unique root beer flavor, as it tends to be quite similar to many popular brews, but it’s a nice one. They didn’t mess up the taste and there are no unusual ingredients.

Give Jones a try! They were one of the first popular brands to always use cane sugar, which is pretty cool!

There are lots of other root beers from Chicago, such as Cicero’s, Triple XXX, and Filbert’s. So if you like Chicago, you should give this drink a try too!

Branding

There really isn’t much branding to this drink. You have the O-So logo in brown and yellow, and that’s about it. The cap is a fun color, though, and they did slap the phrase “Oh! So Good” on the neck of the bottle in yellow and white as well.

Taste and Ingredients

You can smell the butterscotch when you pop the cap off the bottle. There is a strong butterscotch flavor to the drink as well. In fact, I would call it more of a butterscotch dark soda than a root beer, though there is some root-beerish flavor.

Carbonation is light, so there isn’t a lot of fizz, and the root beer goes down smooth and creamy.

I think the main flavors, though, are the butterscotch and the vanilla. O-So also goes for pure cane sugar and mostly readable ingredients, so that’s a good thing.

The Wrap Up

While I prefer regular root beer, the butterscotch isn’t a terrible addition. However, the butterscotch certainly masks the root beer flavor. If you don’t like butterscotch, you probably won’t like this drink either.

On the other hand, if you are feeling adventurous, you should definitely try it out. O-So is pretty good!