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.
