Squamscot Root Beer

The next root beer to be reviewed on this wonderful journey we are all now a part of comes to us from Newfields, NH. The Conner Bottling Works Co. is a family run company and has been around since 1863 producing a vast number of flavored sodas. The beverages have gone by the name Squamscot since 1930. I don't know what a squamscot is, but the obvious mental picture i immediately get is Sasquatch and the Jack Link's Beef Jerky commercials. And that inevitably leads me to my favorite mythological creature of all time, Manbearpig (who i have already talked about numerous times in this blog). Anyway, Squamscot really has nothing to do with Sasquatch or Manbearpig, but i was really surprised from the website as to exactly how many flavors they produce. They even have one called "yup". No idea what that's supposed to taste like. They also do a spruce beer, which i have tasted (from a different brand) and tastes like liquid vapo-rub. So i think yup could turn out to be very interesting.

This root beer comes in a clear glass bottle. The cap has kind of a cool little emblem of a CBW (for Conner Bottling Works) which also appears on the label, although you can't see it in this picture. Besides that, the label is pretty simple and plain. The Conner family prides the fact that they run their business the old fashioned way, and try to stick to an old fashioned style as much as possible. This is somewhat reflected in the label. It has a very narrow color scheme and cuts right to the chase with everything printed on it. Basically just the basics. And that's fine. I got no problem with that.

However, i do have somewhat of a problem with the taste. Maybe problem is the wrong word. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's a bit watery for me. Not much carbonation, nothing to make it really stand out. I've definitely had worse, but this is no ground breaking revolution. I figure they just like sticking to the old way of doing things. To applaud them, they use cane sugar, which isn't all that hard to find in a root beer these days, but if you like that kind of thing you can add Squamscot to your list of acceptable root beers. There isn't much of a root beer flavor in this. It's very faint. I mostly just taste sugar and water.

My official review is that Squamscot gets 5 (five) IBCs. The more i review, the more i find that the world is full of mediocre and lack-luster root beers. Unfortunately, i would have to put Squamscot into that category. Nothing against them. It's "perfectly adequate", but it seems most people like reading either my really highly rated or really lowly rated root beer reviews. So that makes for a lot of reviews that kind of just go by the wayside. From the site, it seems like they pride themselves on their ginger ale most of all. So if you're a fan of ginger ale, maybe give theirs a shot. The root beer you may want to pass on though given a better option is available.