The Cole Family Annual Holiday
Root Beer Taste-Off
2002
Following up on our successful root beer tasting of 2001, we again sampled
nine different root beers. Bringing back the three favorites of 2001 – Pirate’s
Keg, Stewart’s and IBC – we also added six new contenders, including Abita,
Blue Sky, Dog N Suds, Old-Fashioned, Shasta, and Sprecher’s.
Our nine judges sniffed, swirled, slurped and spit, and came up with a new slate of three winners. The Over-All Root Beer Experience winner was Sprecher's, which also had the highest average score over all the eight categories. Second over-all was IBC, a strong finish from last year's third-place beer; IBC was also second in average. Third in the over-all category was Dog N Suds, which was edged by Stewart's for third in the highest average ranking. Our appraisal of Pirate's Keg was marred by not being able to get a recent bottle; the one bottle we were able to obtain had clearly lived beyond its shelf-life, which was reflected in its over-all 8th place finish, down from first in 2001.
As always, our tasting was blind, with participants only discovering at the end of the tasting what the various root beers were.
Nancy showing off the winner, Sprecher's, after the completion of judging,
with Howard and Zane looking on.
Not all participants were able to sustain the rigorous sugar consumption that the 9-beer tasting entailed...
Peter collapses in sugar shock after the judging.
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