the great root beer challenge

When we were kids, it used to be that no one wanted to be a nerd. There were movies and tv shows about them and ways to dress to ensure your standing as a non-nerd. Virtually all the cool kids were athletic and good looking, if not terribly clever or nice. Ahhh, but those days are thankfully behind us, and geek chic is no longer a passing fad. Now television shows have their heroes as members of the Nerd Herd, and eyeglasses are a fashion statement. All that being said, we're nerds. And being nerds, we watch sci-fi tv shows like J.J. Abrams' latest show, Fringe.

Which brings us to our reason for holding a headache-inducing (more on that later) root beer taste test. The Fringe character Walter Bishop, a brilliant paranormal scientist and former mental patient, had a very strong urge to drink a root beer upon his release after 17 years at St. Claire's Mental Hospital. Now Tim found an instant connection with this character, because of his tendency to have his extremely strong brain activity misunderstood as insanity. So Tim thought it would be a good idea to try out different root beers and see which ones came out on top. And Meghan, who has never been afraid of a challenge, decided she should be included in this important scientific experiment.

With the help of our friends, Matt and Lauren Biel, we went to over 20 stores and procured 16 different types of root beer. The prices ranged from $.99 for a 2-liter bottle to $2.00 for a 16-ounce bottle, and the packaging varied from the humble cans we remember from our childhood to slick bottles that more resemble microbrew beers. The lineup was as follows:  Main Street (Giant brand), Parker's (Safeway brand), Mug, A&W, Natural Brew, Stewart's, Virgil's, Sioux City, Maine Root, Dominion, Boylan's, IBC, Sprecher, Barq's, 365 (Whole Foods brand) and Dr. Brown's. We then held a very serious blind tasting at Matt and Lauren's dining room table.

The first several sips went down nicely, but after that things got slightly out of hand. Some of us forgot to pace ourselves, and we all got woozy and headache-y from the sugar rush. Spitting it out like you can do in a wine tasting didn't seem appropriate, so we pressed on valiantly. There were a few discreet burps. We won't get into all the gory details, but let's just say that tasting 16 root beers in one sitting is not as easy as it sounds.

However, all the effort was completely worth it. Using a Tim-devised process whose complexity rivaled that of the BCS bowl system, we were able to determine a clear winner and some worthy runner-ups.

Our #1 pick: IBC. While only Tim was blown away by it in the first round of tasting, by the second and final round the IBC moved up in everyone's estimation. Its spiciness appealed to all four tasters, and it wasn't overly sweet. Placing a surprising second was 365, the Whole Foods brand. Trust us--we didn't think this one would be that good either. But it held its own. In Lauren's words, it was "dark, rich, not too sweet."

Third place went to the one boutique-y candidate that made it into our top 4: Sioux City. We tasted lots of peppermint and sassafras--it was just very root beerish. Nice bottle too. And our fourth place winner was another mass-market bargain brew: Mug. "A hint of clove," noted Matt. "Perfect for ice cream." We're not sure how he could have been thinking about more sugar at a time like this, but we applaud his stamina.

After all that, we Googled root beer and found out that despite having combed the Washington, DC, area for every root beer we could find, there are still dozens of brands we didn't try. You know what this means. Coming sometime in the distant future: The Great Root Beer Challenge, Part II.

Comments

[Andrea Koslow]

loved the post, loved seeing yall last night and barry and i volunteer to be on the second round of root beer tasting if back up tasters are needed!

[Tim O'Rourke]

You're on the list. Next time, we taste about half as many. The tongue gets tired and you start to feel like crap.