I <3 Sprecher

So my first real true love when it comes to root beer is Henry Weinhard's. Consider yourself lucky if you live in the west or in Chicago (the one city outside of the west where they supply their root beer). There's a lovely honey flavor in Henry Weinhard's and no minty herbiness that gets in the way. I had really great communication with someone from Henry Weinhards awhile back sadly the upshot of that communication was that they're not in Boston and they don't plan to expand.

A few weeks ago the New York Times ran an article about root beer. They mentioned a website that my boy is now hooked on: http://rootbeerbarrel.com/ (did you know that there's a root beer producer just outside his home town?! guess what we're stocking up on when we go visit his family in September :)). Also in the NYT article they discuss a root beer produced by Sprecher Brewing. My friend Christina who tends to be more on the ball with these sorts of things sent away for the root beer (and got a lovely mix that also included orange cream soda that my boy thoroughly enjoyed as well). She gave us each a bottle of the root beer and last night we split one bottle (and by split I mean I let my boy have one sip and then I drank the rest -- no easy feat since it's 16 oz).

I. LOVE. Sprecher. While I still love Henry Weinhard, Sprecher has a similar flavor to the one I love AND it comes in 16oz bottles (larger than that if you're actually in Wisconsin, then you can get the 1/4 and 1/2 barrels -- you lucky wisconsonians!!!). I checked the price for sending the bottles to Alaska and it was a little pricey, but if you're only sending to Massachusetts, the price for the soda AND the shipping comes out to about $2.00 a bottle. If you figure that you get 16oz bottles instead of the normal 12 or 13 that comes in cans it's actually not that bad a price (and if you compare it to actual beer, you're coming out way ahead :)). I highly recommend looking into purchasing some of this lovely root beer if you're in the lower 48, it's well worth the expense. Also, since the article, it looks like stores in NY are actually stocking the soda so perhaps it's only a matter of time before Boston starts stocking it too :).