30 - Spring Grove Root Beer
Spring Grove root beer is an original recipe from 1895, according to their website. You can read all about how the company was founded by a pharmacist and a veterinarian. They also give you a nice twist-off cap, which I like for a bottled drink. They are made in Minnesota in a town by the same name.
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!