The Cole Family Annual Holiday
Root Beer Taste-Off
2001
Launching a new family tradition, over Christmas 2001 we had a root beer tasting at the family manse in Santa Barbara. Working with Larry Leininger of Santa Barbara's Plaza Deli, aka "The Soda Guy," we were able to come up with nine different brews to sample from. These included Dad's, Frostie, Henry Weinhart's, Hires, IBC, Pirate's Keg, Root 66, Stewart's, and Thomas Kemper.
The root beers were judged on taste and mouthfeel, as well as over-all root beer experience.
Jarka, Peter and Alex sample one of the nine
brews.
The tasting was blind, so that no one knew which beer we were sampling. We were blessed with the presence of Padric, who makes beer for a living (though not root beer), so we all got to learn the beer tasters' vocabulary.
Padric and Luke contemplate mouthfeel.
At
the end of the tasting, Luke compiled the
scores, and the three top root beers of 2001
were crowned:
#1: Pirate's Keg
#2: Stewart's
#3: IBC
For a copy of our survey instrument, check here.
Luke's Root Beer Homepage + Root Beer Rankings