Wednesday, February 29, 2012

H-E-B Root Beer

This is another root beer i picked up on my last cross country trek with my friend Richard. We passed through Texas and in Houston we stopped at a grocery store to look for root beers. This is one of the ones we found. I don't have a website for the root beer, but store is called H-E-B (an acronym for "Here Everything's Better") and this is the website for the store. The label says this is bottled in San Antonio, but i don't know how long it has been around or anything. Not really important though. This is just another stop on the generic root beer assembly line so i can't expect to find out a lot of the details about it. I doubt much thought went into crafting this beverage in the first place.

I chose to pick this up in a 2-liter bottle since it was the cheapest option. The label is pretty standard for a generic root beer. Same tired bland format, repetative color scheme, and lack of imagination i've come to expect from a store brand. Pretty unremarkable really.

For as much as it sounds like i am getting down on this one, i have to say it tastes pretty dang good. And that's because it's another exact copy of A&W. I've said it before plenty of times, and this one just proves the point: if you're going to make a generic soda that you just want to make money on, you might as well copy the flavor of a popular and winning formula. H-E-B does this with incredible authenticity. My wife now feels as though A&W is just a whore, giving it's recipe to any willing buyer. Personally, i don't really care.

My official review is that H-E-B gets 7 (seven) IBCs. I realize this review is short, but really, i don't have much to say about this one. I think with root beers like this, you basically just want to know if it's good or not. And it is, so i will give it the same score as i gave A&W (cuz they taste the same). So there you have it. It's cheap, it's good, and it's in Texas. The end.

1 comment:

Charles said...

Wanted to expand on something you said. HEB is named after founder Howard Edward Butt. Yes, his name is Butts and I used to live down the street from a family house.

Also Maine Root is best from soda fountain (especially from Hopdoddy's in Austin, Tx), and Goose Island is better than IBC. Yes, I said it.