Spring Grove Root Beer

I picked this one up from the Root Beer Store website a while back. Looking at their site again recently, there are several new root beers i need to try, so i will probably be making another order sometime in the future. Anyway, Spring Grove Root Beer comes from Minnesota and has been around since 1895, making it one of the oldest root beers that i have tried. The story on the website is a familiar tale of humble beginnings, local favoritism and prosperity, followed by corporate take over and global domination. Ok, maybe they haven't reached that level yet, but they have branched out to open operations in the neighboring states of Wisconsin and Iowa. Spring Grove is a small set up with a few different flavors of soda, mostly fruit flavored. For more info about the company, feel free to visit the small and modest website.

The clear glass 12 oz. bottle is outfitted with a clear sticker label (poorly applied i might add) with a lot of text and clutter. There is a little picture of a tree and maybe a brook or stream or something. No color, and the white text contrasts against the brown root beer. Having an empty bottle makes it more difficult to read. Nothing about the label really struck me as novel or interesting. It's very similar to the Cool Mountain root beer label, even in regards to featuring landscapes and scenery on the label. All in all, it's functional but pretty unimaginative.

The taste similarly is kind of lackluster. It's a sweet root beer (sweetened with real cane sugar) and the root beer taste is subtle. It's a little thin. The flavor fades quickly and it's a bit watered down in my opinion, aka the correct opinion and the only one you need consult. But i don't dislike it. It's not unpleasant and i wouldn't mind drinking another one if it were available. And i don't even know why i mention this because it doesn't matter at all to me, but this root beer has pretty decent head. So for those of you who care, there you have it. It would be easier if you just stopped caring though, cuz it doesn't matter.

My official review is that Spring Grove Root Beer gets 5 (five) IBCs. I don't know that this one has a big following. maybe up in the northern Midwest states, to which i have never been (unless you count visiting Chicago as being in that region since Illinois borders Iowa and Wisconsin, but i don't so why don't we just drop it). Regardless, i doubt this stuff will ever get popular enough to have widespread availability. Basically what i am trying to say is it's not bad, but don't go out of your way for it.