Not Your Father's Root Beer

From the moment I heard that Not Your Father's Root Beer was getting distribution in New York, I became very excited. The idea of an alcoholic root beer, while not uncommon, was something I had never seen, much less had the chance to try. So one day as I was reading the morning newspaper(Facebook news feed), I saw it was on sale locally. At that point I jumped out of bed and headed to the store. While driving there I started to have doubts about Not Your Father's Root Beer. What if this wasn't as good as its reputation? What if it tasted more like the awful Jack Daniel's Hard Cola I thought was such a good idea so long ago? What if this is just another “beer” that arrived with a lot of hype and ended up being a gigantic let down? My concerns seemed to vanish immediately as soon as I drove into the parking lot and went into the store. Two minutes later I walked out with a huge smile on my face, 8 bottles and a desire for it to be 5 o'clock somewhere. Several hours later, the time to try my first alcoholic root beer arrived and I was not disappointed.

Not Your Father's Root Beer pours very similar to root beer. It is very dark brown with a light fizzy head that dissipates quickly. The aroma in fact is reminiscent of an old fashion style root beer. It is candy sweet with heavy vanilla, along with anise and clove. The flavor matches the aroma and it is fantastic. The flavor of Not Your Father's Root Beer tastes pretty much exactly like an old fashioned root beer. The only noticeable difference is there is a slight spice and alcohol burn in the finish. While this is truly nitpicking(that's what I do here) the flavor of the alcohol seems to vary per sip. It can go from barely noticeable to an almost mixed drink-like finish. At only 5.9% I feel this should not be case and would have preferred it was masked slightly better. Other than that, this is a fantastic root beer that exceeded every expectation I had for it. I see this being a fixture in my refrigerator for the foreseeable future.

Overall I would rate Not Your Father's Root Beer a 4.5/5. If you are a fan of root beer, this is for you. If you are not a fan of root beer then ignore this review completely.



Rating Scale:
1 - Repugnant and undrinkable
2 - Acceptable but forgettable
3 - Good, worth a purchase
4 - Excellent, a step above the norm
5 - Truly exceptional　

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Thanks for reading. Sláinte!