Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
Full sugar sodas have become a special treat for me akin to fancy scotch or a nice steak. They’re awesome, but since I’ve no longer got the metabolism of a teenager and there’s already a steady slice of my diet reserved for beer-related calories I typically just default to whatever artificially sweetened diet or “zero” options are at hand.
The one exception is root beer. I’m fortunate enough to live in Wisconsin, which has not only great beers but incredible sodas. Standing atop that landscape is Sprecher, whose founder needed to brew something for kids touring his facilities with their parents to sip on and stumbled into a soft drink empire. Sprecher makes some S-tier beverages — their Puma Kola and Orange Dream are rich and satisfying — but the company’s bread and butter is its fire brewed, honey sweetened root beer.
This put Parlor, a new craft soda brand backed by a handful of music business veterans, on my radar for this column. It also gave the startup a high bar to clear. Would their full sugar lineup of soft drinks be worth the 170 calorie toll per bottle? Could they bring birch beer back?
I’m game. Let’s dig in.
Root beer: B+
The first sip belies the smoothness of cane sugar and light carbonation inside. There’s a little bubbling when it hits your tongue, but mostly you get a creamy concoction that lets the flavor inside shine through. It’s sweet but not overpowering, with vanilla and almost minty root tastes working in concert to create a full-bodied drink. It maintains that profile whether poured into a glass or straight out of the bottle.
I’m picky with my root beers, because I live in a state with a bunch of good ones. I’m even pickier with full sugar sodas, because I drink beer for a living and need to cut calories where I can lest I begin to look like I’m in my second trimester. But Parlor’s root beer lives up to the craft soda hype, striking a proper balance between tastes without going overboard on the sweetness or natural earthy flavors.
But I need backup on this taste test. And since I’ve finally got a beverage I can share, let’s see what my daughter thinks.
A five-year-old’s review: “Mmmmh. Have I had root beer before? It’s really good. My taste buds like it. I just love the flavor, that’s it.”
Butterscotch root beer: A
It tastes … oh man, it tastes awesome. The extra carbonation is a welcome addition and the butterscotch, as overpowering as it might have seemed from the smell, plays into the creaminess of the original root beer to make a rich drink that, again, takes advantage of that full sugar base. It still smells a little funky when you bring it up to your lips, but that funk works in its favor once it’s on your tongue.
Drinking from the bottle mutes some of that strong scotch-y smell but doesn’t mess with the equilibrium of “grandpa’s candy” and the original beer covered above. I’ve never had a soda like this — I’d never *heard* of a soda like this — and I’m happy to announce it rules.
A five-year-old’s review: “I don’t like it. It doesn’t taste like the regular one.” (when asked if she’d like to try again, she simply replies “mmm mmm,” runs away and tells no one in particular how good the first one was).
Birch beer: B-
There’s definitely fewer bubbles here, leaving a thicker texture for a drink that works its sweetness to the very limit of being overpowering. It’s bordering on syrup-y, a slight overload of the balance that worked so well in Parlor’s other sodas.
Drinking from the bottle doesn’t help focus the minimal carbonation, leaving the whole thing a little flat. The flavor here is nice, but it feels a little unfinished. It’s my least favorite of the three flavors, but it seems like it would be easy to improve.
A five-year-old’s review: “Mmm. I kind of like it a little bit. It’s a maybe, because it’s sweet and I kinda like it a little bit, so it’s a maybe.”
Would I drink it instead of a Hamm's?
This a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I’m drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That’s the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm’s. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Parlor’s lineup of soft drink beers over a cold can of Hamm’s?
I’ll happily start a cookout with a butterscotch root beer or the regular version — or use it to space out drinks. The birch beer wasn’t my style and not worth the caloric toll, but in terms of a full bodied soda I only splurge on every so often, Parlor’s root beers were a hit.
