Steve's Root Beer Journal

I opened this just before class this afternoon:



Brand: Hosmer Mountain Beverages Diet Root Beer.

Origin: Willimantic, CT.

Purchase Place: Blue Sun Soda, Spring Lake Park, MN.

Sweetener: Fructose and Aspartame.

Review: This wasn't that great. First of all, it had that "thin" flavor that many diet sodas have. Secondly, it had a burnt caramel flavor to it that was not appealing at all. Luckily, that flavor wasn't too bad because it didn't have much flavor. This was not very drinkable and well below average.

Score: 2.5 out of 10.

I cracked into this while cooking recently:



Brand: Hosmer Cola-Blue.

Origin: Willimantic, CT.

Purchase Place: Blue Sun Soda, Spring Lake Park, MN.

Sweetener: High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Review: This was a typical "good" cola. It had a deep flavor with a strong slightly fruity aftertaste. It was pretty good, but pretty much like other decent colas.

Score: 6.5 out of 10.

As we were doing a lot of cooking last night, I opened this:



Brand: Hosmer Mountain White Birch Beer.

Origin: Willimantic, CT.

Purchase Place: Blue Sun Soda, Spring Lake Park, MN.

Sweetener: Pure Cane Sugar.

Review: This was good! If I wasn't told it was a "white birch beer," I would have called it a clear root beer. It tasted like a rich root beer that was heavy on the anise (but not TOO heavy). My boys tried sips of this too, and they loved it. I really don't have any complaints! I'm ranking this quite high!

Score: 9.5 out of 10!
 

I opened this yesterday on my birthday:



Brand: Hosmer Mountain Black Cherry Soda.

Origin: Willimantic, CT.

Purchase Place: Blue Sun Soda, Spring Lake Park, MN.

Sweetener: High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Review: This was OK, but not amazing. It had a decent flavor, and ALMOST verged on "black cherry CREAM." Nothing exciting, but was decent. I'll rate it just barely above average.

Score: 6 out of 10.

I enjoyed this between my classes last week:

On my "instructor station" at class.

Brand: Hosmer Root Beer.

Origin: Willimantic, CT.

Purchase Place: "Minnesota's Largest Candy Store," Jordan, MN.

Sweetener: High Fructose Corn Sweetener.

Review: This was really smooth and creamy. There's a bit of a caramel hint that just nearly verges on being too much for me. If you like a bit of caramel in a smooth root beer, then give this a try. It was pretty decent.

Score: 7.5 out of 10.

I opened this up earlier this week:



Brand: Hosmer Mountain Sarsaparilla Root Beer.

Origin: Willimantic, CT.

Purchase Place: Frattallones Ace Hardware, St. Paul, MN.

Sweetener: Sugar and Brown Sugar.

Review: It says "Sarsaparilla." It says "Root Beer." Well which is it? It definitely was a Root Beer. It had a good vanilla flavor and was verging on creamy, but it was just a bit too weak and watered down. The flavor was good… there just needed to be MORE of it. Or it needed to hit a little harder. This was OK.

Score: 6 out of 10.