No more A&W draft root beer?

Joined
May 25, 2005
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Hi all,

As a kid my family would stop by an A&W after hitting up Costco or ahome depot and get a gallon of the REAL draft root beer. It was creamy and had less carbonation than the store stuff. I stopped in an An A&W a few months back as the one near my house used to have it. I asked the kid behind the counter and he looked at me like I had two heads. Has anyone seen the good root beer locally recently? It's like they completely stopped making it.
 
Few actually want it anymore. It probably switched to using high fructose corn syrup and sucks anyways. There are better root beers with cane sugar if you look like Boylan which was around before A&W.
 
Wife and I always get the root beer floats whenever were out shopping,back when I was a kid we would stop and get a gal jug before going to the drive in, root beer and popcorn.
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I can walk to a Stewart's by my house but I do prefer a nice birch beer.
 
Plenty of local brewers that do draft root beer. Local favorite in these parts is 1919 Root Beer - available in kegs, pony kegs, pint cans, etc...
 
+1 … my aunt always fixed those for us in the summer … us included the uncle, LoL …
 
A&W ingredients:
Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, sodium benzoate (preservative), natural and artificial flavors, quillaia extract
 
Just make your own!

Two cases of empty beer bottles with screw caps, prefer 16 oz.
Two bottles root beer extract
5 lbs sugar
1/2 cake of bakers yeast, small Flieschman's works well.

5 gal water
5 gallon crock to mix in.
 
I'll bet that kid behind the counter had no idea what root beer is

You should have asked if they had cream soda. He wouldn't know that either.

It's been a long time since I had a good cream soda.
 
Dad's root beer, IBC root beer, and Virgil's root beer are made with cane sugar as opposed to high fructose corn syrup, and are available in stores everywhere.
 
Originally Posted by brages
If you have a Culver's... in my opinion, they have a root beer on tap that is about the same as A&W "draft".


Thanks for bringing them up. I've never been to one but there is one near me. My health nut wife only allows me to eat red meat once a week and we go out for ice cream once a week, so I'll try them out this weekend.
 
Originally Posted by skyactiv
Originally Posted by brages
If you have a Culver's... in my opinion, they have a root beer on tap that is about the same as A&W "draft".
Thanks for bringing them up. I've never been to one but there is one near me. My health nut wife only allows me to eat red meat once a week and we go out for ice cream once a week, so I'll try them out this weekend.

Yes the root beer there is good but what you miss is the cold glass mug, drinking it out of a plastic (or worse paper) cup is not the same.

If you're in southeastern Wisconsin another good alternative is Sprecher root beer, although their cream soda is better (I'd say spectacular). Some places have one or more on tap.
 
They just closed the A&W locally so unfortunately no more draft. However, I did stumble on a Root Beer that Goose Island makes and it is very, very good.
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