Jones Root Beer

This is a soda that i would wager nearly everyone has heard of. Or, i should say, of which everyone has heard (sorry grammar geeks). Jones Soda is a product of Canada and has authority to brew and bottle its sodas in Seattle, WA. Jones started out as an affiliate of another distributor and was officially established as its own company in 1996. Jones made a name for itself through its variety of classic as well as unique and "wierd" flavors, and for the variety of photographs shown on the labels of every bottle of Jones Soda. One of the appeals is that the consumers can get involved by sending in photos of... anything really. If Jones likes the picture, it will feature it on their bottles. The flavor of the soda has nothing to do with what pictures are featured. As far as i can tell, it's completely random. Jones also has different fortunes under the cap which are straight from fortune cookies. Consumers can also send in some of their favorite fortunes to see if they end up under the cap. So the interaction with the public is kind of a cool thing and draws a crowd.

Jones frequently puts out "holiday packs" of usually 4 different flavors that are related to a certain holiday. For example, with Thanksgiving fast approaching, maybe you'd like to pick up a pack with flavors like turkey, gravy, and mashed potatoes. Maybe for Christmas you want to taste a "pear tree" or a "candy cane" soda. They don't stop there though. It seems they try and out-do themselves every year (or so...) on top of that. Kinda neat that they keep trying to develop new flavors like that. I would call them the Jelly Bellys of sodas, and that's because i'm clever.

It's a 12 oz bottle, clear, and it has a resealable cap. This bottle features a color picture of what seems to be a chandelier or something. Sometimes they are color, sometimes black and white. Again, as far as i can tell, it's completely random regarding which picture ends up on which flavor or bottle. I have seen the same picture on several different flavors. This photo is #8120, and another novelty is that Jones lists on thier bottle the name of the person who sends in the photo and where they are from.

It's a good tasting root beer. It has a classic, solid root beer taste with a very good vanilla after taste. But nothing about it really makes it an amazing root beer. It's good, but it doesn't stand out that much. I mean, i like root beer as much as the next person, but when you're looking at the whole range and scope of Jones flavors (meaning, there are a lot of them), you might look over the root beer for something else that you've never even thought of in a soda before.

My official review is that Jones gets 6 (six) IBCs. I like the root beer. It's a good flavor. But i think i am just more a fan of the soda in general. They have tons of great flavors, and the pictures and interaction with the public is pretty cool. So if i had my choice of Jones sodas, i probably wouldn't reach for a root beer. Hey, you can't drink root beer all the time, right? But i would recommend it if you're looking for a good tasting root beer.