American Fare Root Beer

This is another one of the root beers my dear friend Richard brought me from North Carolina, although i am sure it's available several other places (just not here in Arizona). It's called American Fare Root Beer, and it's another generic brand from the good people at Kmart. The website on the can is for Kmart.com, but when i go there and type in "american fare root beer", this is what comes up. So basically, the information i am getting about this root beer is coming from the can. From what i can tell, it's made in Hoffman Estates, IL (a suburb of Chicago) and i have no idea how long it's been around. It was really nice of Richard to bring me all these root beers i don't have access to here. In repayment for bringing me 5 root beers, i brought him to a Mexican restaurant in someone's backyard, which in turn brought us both a raging case of explosive diarrhea and has subsequently been shut down. It's a shame too. I would have gladly risked another case of the runs for the chance to enjoy their delicious food. Seriously, it was really good.

This root beer is typical of a generic. The 12 oz. can looks like it has a generic label, very few colors used and typical of those used by most generics. It's several shades of brown and cream colors with a little splash of blue in the logo. There are some decals of frothy root beer mugs running up the side with lots of little bubbles of carbonation making up the majority of the background. Not as dull and boring as some labels i've seen, but still nothing super special to get excited about.

As far as taste is concerned, this is another copy of A&W, not unlike Parker's (which is Safeway's generic root beer). So in that sense, it's a good root beer and probably fairly inexpensive. But there is still something about it that makes it not all that great. Maybe it's just the psychological effect of knowing you're drinking a rip off that makes you think it's just not as good. So whatever it is, it's a good root beer, it's just not as good as the root beer it is intended to taste like. It has good carbonation and a distinct A&W flavor, but i swear near the end of it the flavor was fading fast and it was mostly just watery and sweet.

My official review is that American Fare gets 6 (six) IBCs. It's probably a bargain because it's a generic and the price for a lot of this stuff is most likely quite low. However, it cannot be rated as highly as what it is intended to taste like because it simply is not quite as good. I think i rated Parker's as highly as i did A&W, and with good reason. Unfortunately, American Fare does not meet the same standard. Still, it's not a bad root beer, and a 6 is considered better than average. So maybe it's something you might want to pick up if you're on a budget.