Otto's root beer

Background information: Otto's is a brewery and distillery that makes both sodas and alcoholic beverages. The site doesn't really have any background information.

Product details: 12 fl. oz.  Brewed and Bottled by Otto's Pub and Brewery, State College, PA. 180 calories, 45g sugar. Glass bottle with pry off top. www.ottospubandbrewery.com

Ingredients: Carbonated water, cane sugar, dark brown sugar, caramel color, gum arabic, natural and artificial flavors, phosphoric acid, citric acid, sodium benzoate, yucca extract, vanillin, and ethyl vanillin.


My thoughts: Despite being a little creeped out by the Otto's mascot's mustache, I'm hoping that their pub and brewery expertise is better than their graphic design sensibilities. Just know that the creepy little guy kept staring at me as I drank the root beer. Sure, he's toasting some sort of festivities, but behind those beady eyes is the mind of a deranged serial killer, I'm sure of it.

As far as root beers go, this one knows exactly what it is. There's a very strong root beer sassafras flavor. It's bold and good. Too often root beers are like, "I think I might want to be a root beer, but I'm not sure...so I'm just going to kind of do the flavor." Not here. Underneath the initial rooty flavor, I like what the brown sugar is doing. It's not as strong as some of the other brown sugar ones I've had, but I think the balance and slightly subtle molasses and vanilla/caramel taste is spot on. The aftertaste reveals a pleasant cooling wintergreen mint effect, with not too much mint flavor. Again, I like it when it doesn't feel like toothpaste minty, which this one happily avoids. I'll save that strong mint for when I'm brushing my teeth. probably my only knock against it is that it plays it a bit safe with the formula rather than trying anything super interesting with the spices. But sometimes I just want a solid root beer that's not trying to be too fancy.

Right out the gate, this isn't one of the aggressively carbonated root beers, but has a crisp, bubbly feel to it that only slightly prickles the tongue. This really comes down to personal preference, where I prefer the large bubbles of carbonation that attack my tongue, but this one is pretty dang good. I never felt like it was too flat. Sweetness is great, if not ever so slightly on the sugary side. I think this has to do with brown sugar feeling a bit thicker, but it's a tradeoff I'm more than happy to make. Finally, Otto's does have a creamy sensation, helped a bit by the vanilla flavor I'm sure, but it went down nice and smooth. Again, not a top-tier performer for creaminess, but much better than your average root beer.

Despite Otto being a complete creep, I just turned the bottle around so he faced away and couldn't stare at me with those eyes while I enjoyed the root beer. This one does a lot of things right and I would gladly recommend giving it a try.

Rating: A-
flavor: A
aftertaste: A-
sweetness: B+
smoothness: B+
carbonation: A

Chumlee root beer

Background information: (from the website): "The Rocket Fizz Soda Pop and Candy Shops, LLC was founded in 2007 by Robert (Rob) Powells and Ryan Morgan and in 2012 Rich Shane became the company CEO. The original store opened in 2009. The Ventura, CA and Portland OR locations are company-owned. The Rocket Fizz Soda Pop and Candy Shop is the largest and fastest growing soda pop and candy shop franchise brand in America. Besides the two company owned stores all of the other Rocket Fizz Soda Pop and Candy Shop locations throughout the U.S.A. and Canada are franchised and are independently owned and operated. As the creators and co-owners of the entire Rocket Fizz system, Rob and Ryan carefully select each Rocket Fizz franchise store operator."

Product details: 12 fl. oz.  Intellectual property of and bottled by the Rocket Fizz Soda Pop and Candy Shops, LLC., P.O. Box 5400, Incline Village, NV 89450. 170 calories, 42g sugar. Glass bottle with pry off top. www.rocketfizz.com

Ingredients: Carbonated artisan spring water, pure cane sugar, citric acid, ester gum, caramel color and natural flavors. No preservatives: flash pasteurized for safety.


My thoughts: Okay, I've seen the occasional episode of Pawn Stars and at least know who Chumlee is, but why he needed his own root beer, I'll never know. Seeing as how this comes from the Rocket Fizz lineup of root beers, I have a suspicion that it'll be another generic repackaging of their standard formula. I haven't had any of the Rocket Fizz root beers side by side to compare directly, but looking over my reviews they seem to provide a very similar experience, so maybe one day I'll do a side by side to see if they are all the same with just a different label, or if there is actually some customization of their basic recipe for each one. But today is not that day, so onto the Chumlee review I go.

Up front, this is a wintergreen minty root beer, as the mint is immediately noticeable as a main flavor rather than just an aftertaste. It blends with the usual sassafras root beer flavor in a decent mix, but with those two absolutely dominating the flavor profile, don't leave room for other more subtle spices to make themselves known. There is a little hint of vanilla in the aftertaste, but this is primarily a wintergreen flavor profile, with the minty taste and cooling effects lingering behind long after drinking it.

The carbonation is nice and crispy, though there's not as much of it as I would like. It doesn't feel flat, by any means, but it's not as infused with the sharp bite of the bubbles as I prefer, though I do tend to like my carbonation on the more aggressive side. Sweetness is fine, though it's slightly hard to say if it feels less syrupy because the cooling effect of the mint may cover up my ability to feel the more subtle sugary sensation. It doesn't seem to be as creamy as some of my favorites, but again, I wonder how much of that is my mouth being cooled/numbed by the strength of the mint.

This isn't a bad root beer by any means. In fact, I thought it was fairly good, slightly above average. I'm not a huge fan of extremely minty root beers, as I prefer a little more subtlety so I can enjoy the other flavors. Even so, I did enjoy this one and if you love minty root beers, then this might be what you're looking for. This also seems to be a fair bit mintier than past Rocket Fizz root beers, so I guess I can safely say that they do allow for variation in their root beer recipes, so at least all their drinks are just rebadges of the same thing.

Rating: C+
flavor: C+
aftertaste: C
sweetness: B+
smoothness: B
carbonation: B-