Gray's Gourmet Root Beer

I couldn't find a lot about this one on the internet either. No official site that i know of, but several sites where you can buy it online. However, looking at the label on the bottle we can see that Gray's Root Beer is brewed in Janesville, WI (which is Wisconsin, in case you were wondering). The label also says that it's a family own and run operation since 1856 and gets its name from the family that runs it. It doesn't make me think of the Gray family, it makes me think of Gray's Anatomy, and what an awful and stupid TV show it is. Luckily this root beer has no connection (that i know of) to terrible TV programming. To be honest, i am pretty disappointed by most all TV shows these days. Anyway, this is about root beer, and not TV shows. If you want a review of TV shows, you'll have to visit my other blog, cosmosTVreviews.blogspot.com.

It comes in a clear glass 12 oz. bottle that is pretty standard. The label is brown with big font and a little cartoon picture of a root beer barrel. It's fairly simple, but i can appreciate it. It gets the message across. Whatever.

It's a good root beer, but nothing special about it. It has a good, classic root beer taste to it that's enjoyable, but nothing much else. I was a little surprised that it was as good as it is. I don't know what it is, but i almost have a bias against a root beer in a clear bottle. However, this root beer uses high fructose corn syrup. A lot of the independent brews use cane sugar, and when they come in a clear bottle, i usually am not as impressed with the taste. Just noticing a trend here. I believe the scientific method would call for me to make a hypothesis based on my observations, so i would make the hypothesis that perhaps the amount of light that is let in by the clear bottle affects the content of the soda (particularly the cane sugar) and alters the taste slightly. I'm probably wrong, but i gave it a shot, right? And hey, in my opinion science is really just about sounding smart.

My official review is that Gray's gets 5 (five) IBCs. It's a good, basic root beer. Not amazing and not really unique at all, but it's good. It will just have to join the ranks of all those other middle of the road root beers. I'm not sure how widely distributed it is, but i didn't mind it and you should give it a try if it's available.