Pearson Bros. Root Beer

This is another one of the root beers i have recently ordered online. Before i get into the root beer, i want to give you the run down of Soda Samurai, the site i ordered this root beer from. I like the site because they have a decent root beer selection (as well as many other kinds of sodas), i can order the root beers individually instead of in packs or cases, the shipping isn't outrageous, and they even sent me this little bottle opener key chain, which will come in handy for those pesky non-twist tops. So kudos to you Soda Samurai. Check them out if you get a chance. They are decent.

Anyway, Pearson Bros. root beer is made in San Francisco, CA, and the reason i know that is because it says so on the bottle. Other than that, i found it hard to find much info about Pearson Bros. However, I did a bit of digging and investigative journalists everywhere should be proud of me for finding this website that quotes the creaters of Pearson Bros. Root Beer, Matt and Eric Pearson (and yes, they are actually brothers). This article in the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper tells that the root beer has been around since 1996 and can be found mostly in the Bay Area. Aside from this, i can't find much else on Pearson Bros. But I guess there are a lot of famous Peasons out there, including the distrubutors of some well known but unappealing candy, and even a statistical genius of sorts. I actually knew some Pearsons growing up in Northern Arizona, and they seemed pretty successful as well. Must be something in the name. I guess it only makes statistical sense that the probability of a Pearson getting into the root beer business is much higher than a person with any other surname. Don't believe me? Take a look at this. I'm pretty sure it proves my point.

The bottle is a 12 oz. clear glass bottle and the label is very simple, but it stands out. Red really catches the eye, or at least my eye, which is what is important. It has a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge on it and big text of the name of the root beer, but not much else. It's very plain, but i like it. And unfortunately, that may be the only thing i like about it. Let's just start off by saying i am not sure what it is, but i have a prejudice against root beers in clear glass bottles. There are a few i have liked, but it's rare.

So what's wrong with Pearson Bros.? Let's start with the color. The clear glass bottles give away the fact that the color of the root beer isn't very rich or deep. It's very light brown in color and transparent enough for me to see right through it. Again, this is usually an indication to me that i am not going to like the root beer. I have reviewed enough of them to make this correlation. So if the color is off, the taste isn't going to be there either. This stuff is very bland. It has enough carbonation, but just barely. And the flavor is very watery and sugary. It doesn't linger and doesn't make an impression, much like many of the other light colored, clear glass bottle root beers (I'm looking at you Olde Brooklyn). But while it's nothing to write home about, it's not completely awful either. There just isn't anything about it that would make me want to travel to the Bay Area for more.

My official review is that Pearson Bros. gets 4 (four) IBCs. I've had worse, but i've also had much, much better. It doesn't stand out from many of the other root beers and seems like just another label with not much going on inside. So for those of you in the Bay Area who are looking for some good root beer, you will probably need to look else where. But to be completely honest, you're probably Chinese and don't drink root beer anyway. Hey, according to Pearson, it's a statistical fact.