EVENT HORIZEN ~ HALO

This interesting brew is a Stout with Sarsaparilla, one of the main flavours of root beer. Sampled on draught, the beer poured an opaque very dark ebony with a thin mocha beige head. The nose had notes of chocolate, sweet sarsaparilla, dark malts , and perhaps a bit of vanilla. Chocolate, caramel sweetness, herbal sarsaparilla, roasted malts and coffee round out the taste. It is like drinking a creamy root beer. I prefer this to the ‘hard’ root beers that I have sampled. I will admit, root beer is my guilty pleasure, so I really liked this one, but sparingly. It has a medium to full body, and average carbonation. This is a whimsical brew, recommended to root beer lovers.
Malts: Maris Otter, Flaked Barley, Roasted Barley, Chocolate, Flaked Oats, Crystal Dark, Black
Hops: Northern Brewer, Willamette
Yeast: London III Ale
6% from Toronto, Ontario 30 IBU

Photo courtesy of Halo Brewing

DISTILLERY ROOT BEER ~ MILL STREET BREWERY

I have to admit, Root beer is a guilty pleasure. I am long since a teenager, but still love a cold root beer on a hot day. This was my first foray into hard root beers. I know, I know, this is not really a beer, but a hard soda, but I am going to review it anyway. It is made by Mill Street Brewery who has combined their own non-alcoholic Root Beer (which they have been making for quite a while) with Vanilla Porter Bierschnaps, which is also made at their brewery in Toronto. The ingredient list looks far more like a commercial pop than a ‘naturally brewed’ distillery drink. Sampled from a bottle the beer poured a clear, medium dark brown with lots of snap and crackle from the carbonation. It smelled much like root beer, with a lot of vanilla, sassafras, cola, licorice and spice. It tasted like….root beer…but a very sweet root beer with vanilla and licorice, and subtler woody notes. I did not get much of an alcohol taste at all. Overall way too sweet for me, I would have liked a pricklier carbonation (after initial opening carbonation was soft), less sweetness and more of a bite. Glad I tried it, but won’t be returning to it any time soon,

5.2% from Toronto, Ontario