Goose Island Spicy Ginger

This fall we, like the good Midwesterners we pretend we are, spent a brisk Friday afternoon visiting a few orchards.   One of my favorites is in Jordan, as they have a lovely orchard that you can ride horses through.  But alas, they no longer offer horseback rides. But at least we scored on some caramel apples, at least until the indigestion set in.

Like a mirage out of the desert, lo and behold, we came across Minnesota's Largest Candy Store.  Don't let the name fool you, it isn't just candy.  They have over 150 types of root beer in their coolers, and other tasty sodas, too.  Clearly, I have found my people.

My poor abused stomach immediately found Goose Island's WBC Spicy Ginger.  Having previously fallen in love with Goose Island's Orange Cream, I grabbed it with two hands and didn't look back.

Ingredients:  Triple filtered carbonated water, sugar, natural flavor, citric acid, sodum benzoate as a preservative and caramel color.

This is a quite sweet soda, the cane sugar gives it an almost sticky mouth feel.  The ginger is definitely present.  It isn't the strongest bite, but it is there.  I wouldn't quite call it "spicy,"since I didn't get that lovely tingling mouth after drinking it.  It did, however, settle my stomach, and some days that's all you can ask.

It is tasty enough, and definitely a step up from Canada Dry.  If you aren't used to the truly bitey ginger beers out there this would be a great beverage to start with.

And visit Minnesota's Largest Candy Store, which also seems to go by the name of Jim's Apple Farm.  Worth the drive.

Ely Soda Works

It is truly a rare treat to find a microbrew soda, and Ely Sodas are so local I can't find ANY information on them, beyond this ad from the local Ely gazette, the Ely Echo.

The bottle in my possession doesn't give me any clues, either.  There is no contact information, no phone number, no website.  It is a mystery, indeed.

We tried two varieties, the Minnesota Bear Blueberry Soda and the Minnesota Voyageur ButterScotch Root Beer.

I wasn't able to save the bottle of the blueberry soda (we had smuggled our own pop in and carrying out the empties was inconvenient.)  So I don't have an ingredient list for you.  I can tell you that it was moderately carbonated, not too sweet, and the blueberry flavor reminded me of what I thought was Frankenberry, but my cereal-loving husband corrected me was actually Booberry.  It was pretty much lukewarm by this point, so the carbonation may be a bit more bitey when cold.

I do still have the bottle of the butterscotch root beer.   Ingredients are: Carbonated water, sugar and/or corn sweetener, caramel color, natural & artificial flavors, sodium benzoate (as a preservative)  

The ingredient list didn't fill me with a lot of confidence, but I forged on ahead.  Again, this wasn't as cold as I would have preferred, but I don't think it hurt the flavor.  Nice carbonation, good mouthfeel- not too syrupy, not too thin.  But the flavor!  Have you ever read Harry Potter.  No? Liars.  Of course you've read Harry Potter.  Remember butterbeer?  I'm pretty sure this is exactly what they were talking about.  The strongest notes are the butterscotch.  The root beer is far more subtle, just enough to keep the butterscotch from being too cloying- just a tiny bit of the sassafras.  My favorite of the two.

Definitely worth a trip up to the Boundary Waters.  Between Ely Soda Works and Dorothy Molter Root Beer, Ely might just be on its way to becoming the soda pop mecca of the Great Lakes.

AJ Stephan's Wild Strawberry

AJ Stephan's calls their wild strawberry soda an "elixer."  While this draws up pictures of men with curly mustaches selling patent cures, what you get instead is an old-fashioned soda like your grandma used to make. 

Or didn't make.  My grandma spent more time studying political science than making cookies, but surely, someone's grandma made soda at home.  And it probably tasted like this.

The wonderful thing about AJ Stephan's Wild Strawberry is it isn't too sweet, even though the second ingredient is sugar.  (real sugar, not that HFCS garbage).

The taste is somewhere between a summery wine and strawberry jam, with a nice amount of carbonation.  A good choice for a lazy Sunday afternoon in a hammock.  Wear gingham.

INGREDIENTS: Made with Pure Carbonated New England Water, Cane Sugar, Flavoring, Color & Sodium Benzoate.

Abita Root Beer

 When I came across Abita Root Beer I knew I had to try it.  My husband is familiar with Abita's beer, which is name checked alot in television any time you have a show set in Louisiana (True Blood, I'm looking at you).

Now, Abita has a fairly normal list of ingredients, right up until you hit yucca root.  What is yucca root?

From their website:  Abita Root Beer is made with a hot mix process using spring water, herbs, vanilla and yucca (which creates foam). Unlike most soft drink manufacturers, Abita sweetens its root beer with pure Louisiana cane sugar. The resulting taste is reminiscent of soft drinks made in the 1940s and 1950s, before bottlers turned to corn sugar and fructose. Some soft drink makers add caffeine to their product, but Abita is naturally caffeine-free.

So, there's that.  The rest of the ingredients are:   Carbonated water, cane sugar, caramel color, root beer flavor, phosphoric acid

It comes in a squat little brown bottle which is very nice to hold in your hand.  Nicely carbonated, with a good, yet clean mouthfeel.  Not too sweet.  Fairly standard "root beer" flavor- none of the notes stand out particularly, just a nice root beer flavor.  I would recommend this if you like your rootbeer to be very balanced flavor without being sugary.