Lakefront Brewery Golden Maple Root Beer

If you're ever in Milwaukee, a really fun city, you have to take the Lakefront Brewery Tour.  It is about as "Milwaukee" you can get without a real German pedigree.  They give you tons of samples on the tour, you get to see some great Brewers memorabilia, and you even get to sing the Laverne and Shirley theme song.  Make sure you go on a Friday and stay for the real Milwaukee Fish Fry (accept no imitations that will serve you French Fries- this is the real deal with potato pancakes, rye bread, and live polka music.)

It was on this tour I was first given Lakefront's Golden Maple Root Beer.  At the time I wasn't much of a beer drinker, and was delighted to get something I would actually enjoy!  Since I was such an enthusiast, they generously gave me several bottles.

Alas, my first sampling was not good.  Slightly flat, there was almost no root beer flavor at all.  You couldn't really taste much of anything other than a hint of vanilla.

Fast forward several years, I was at a beer festival and had hit my limit for that day.  Lo and behold, the lovely folks at the Lakefront booth had a whole cooler full of Golden Maple Root Beer!  Desperate times called for desperate measures.  With shaky hands, I opened my bottle, prepared for the worst...and it was good!

The first time I had the root beer must have been a fluke bad batch.  To test it again, I had another bottle completely sober, and it was still good!    Nicely carbonated, good rich mouthfeel, it has a hint of rootbeer/wintergreen more dominated by vanilla and the sweet tanginess of the maple.

Ingredients:carbonated water, pure cane sugar, pure Wisconsin maple syrup, caramel color, natural root beer flavor, gum acacia, preservatives – sodium benzoate, potassium sulfate