Mug Root Beer

Again, here is another root beer that is going to be well known among just about everyone. I'm probably going to keep this one short. Mug Root Beer is common just about all over the U.S. I picked this one up in a gas station also. According to the site, Mug started in the 1950's in San Francisco, CA. The root beer's mascot, a bull dog named "Dog" (well at least it's easy to remember) has a history of his own listed on the website. I doubt it's true, but it makes for a cute and fun little story i suppose. Whatever. The point is, Mug has made a name for itself and, like Barq's, can be found in restaurants and gas stations all over the country.

Again, because i bought it in a gas station, it's in a pretty regular 20 oz. plastic bottle. I hope to be able to review at least most of my root beers in glass bottles, but i realize i will have to do some from plastic bottles, and at some point maybe even cans. But if i can find this in a glass bottle i will update the picture and maybe the review. The label is very colorful and polished with the mascot holding a mug of root beer under the name. He's cuter on the label than he is on the website, where he kinda freaks me out a little. Just take a look and i think you'll see what i mean.

This is a good root beer, but not much less or more. I like it a lot, and there is something about it that is specific to Mug and sets it apart, yet it's still quite anonymous in the way of root beers and can be lumped in to a lot of the regular middle of the road variety. I enjoy the classic root beer taste though and the nice carbonation. Mug also uses high fructose corn syrup instead of pure cane sugar, and again, i think that's simply to save money because it's such a widely distributed root beer and part of a large conglomerate (i.e. Pepsi). But i don't hold that against a root beer. At this point, i don't care about the whole corn syrup/cane sugar feud. Whatever guys, let's just act like gentlemen and let bygones be bygones. Except you, Wienhard's. You're still worthless.

My official review is that Mug gets 6 (six) IBCs. Like Barq's, i end up drinking a lot of this stuff while i am out and about. It's a good root beer and deserves the reputation it has, but again, it's not really anything special. I like it, but i wouldn't choose it out of a line up. Weather traveling or eating out, chances are you'll be drinking this soon anyway, so i don't really care if you pick one up or not.