Root beer
Root beer is a beverage made from a combination of vanilla, cherry tree bark, licorice root, sarsaparilla root, sassafras root bark, nutmeg, anise, and molasses among other things. Each root beer has a unique recipe. Root beer constitutes about 3% of the American soft drink market. Many local brands of root beer exist and home-made root beer is made from concentrate or (rarely) from roots.
Ingredients
Other ingredients may include allspice, birch bark, coriander, juniper, ginger, wintergreen, hops, burdock root, dandelion root, spikenard, pipsissewa, guaiacum, spicewood, yellow dock, honey, clover, cinnamon, prickly ash bark, yucca, quillaja, and dog grass.
Due to the wide variety of ingredients possible the flavour of root beer is widely variable between brands. This is especially true of local brands.
Traditional use
Root beer was a traditional beverage and herbal medicine. The beverage was often alcoholic, usually around 2%. As a medicine it was used for cough and mouth sores. Commercially prepared root beer was developed by Charles Elmer Hires on May 16, 1866. He presented root tea powder at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial exhibition. In 1893 he began selling bottled carbonated root beer.
The main flavoring ingredient in commercial root beers today is wintergreen.
Home-made root beer is made using flavouring (either a concentrate, or actual roots and spices) to which is added sugar, water, and yeast. It is allowed to ferment under pressure to retain the carbonation and limit the alcohol produced by the yeast to low levels.
Sassafras controversy
The FDA banned sassafras root in the U.S. in 1960 as it contains safrole, a potential carcinogen. The young shoots, bark, and leaves do not contain this toxin, so commercial extracts are often made from these. Also, artificial flavouring agents have been developed which are used in some commercial root beers. Other varieties use sassafras root extract from which the safrole has been removed. The sassafras tree grows wild in most of the Eastern United States and a person could go and harvest the wild plants; however, removing safrole from sassafras root extract and verifying that it is safe is a task that is beyond the ability and equipment of most homebrewers.
Root beer as a flavor
Root beer is also used as a flavoring for candy, cough drops, popcorn, root beer floats, cakes, and breads. An example of this are root beer Sanded Candy Drops made by Pennsylvania Dutch Candies.
Root beer in culture and entertainment
Root beer is occasionally used by the media when a beer-like beverage is portrayed which must be non-alcoholic for family audiences. An example is Tapper, a popular arcade video game from Bally Midway in 1983. The player is a bartender who must pour and serve beer to customers in several different bars. When this caused some controversy, a nearly-identical variant of the game was released the following year called Root Beer Tapper, with all the beer now being root beer instead.
British singer Jimmy Somerville released a short album called Root Beer in 2000, and its cover art featured a cartoon version of Somerville riding a root beer barrel like a rodeo bronco.
Commercial brands
Root beer brands include:
- A&W Root Beer — Cadbury-Schweppes, and Yum! Brands, Inc.
- Barq's — Coca-Cola
- Briar's Root Beer — Briar's
- Dad's Root Beer — Monarch Beverages
- Frostop Root Beer — Frostop Beverages, Inc.
- Hank's Root Beer — Hank's Beverages
- Henry Weinhard's Root Beer — Blitz-Weinhard Co.
- Hires Root Beer
- IBC Root Beer — Cadbury-Schweppes
- Marky's Old Timey Root Beer
- Mug Root Beer — PepsiCo
- Old Dominion Root Beer — Old Dominion Brewing Company
- Ramblin' Root Beer — Coca-Cola, Replaced in mid-90's with Barq's
- Sprecher Brewery
- Stewart's Fountain Classics — Cadbury-Schweppes
- Super Chill
- Virgil's Root Beer — Reed's, Inc.
- Berghoff
- Goose Island
- Pirates Keg
- Bosque
- Thomas Kemper
- Lost Trail
- Root 66
- Roundhouse
- Clover Classic
- Frostie's
- Fitz's
- Journey
- Shasta (soft drink)