bear with me

i would recommend changing your password if you are a registered user

seems a fellow decided my site was worthy of hacking, so he did. bear with me while i restore junk.
thanks
[update 1/31/08 10:10 am] ok, all back to good, i think. see anything weird? let me know.
silly hackers.
i am sort of touched that my site was important enough to hack, but still slightly annoyed. alas.

it seems one of the plug-ins i use was exploited to get all the user names and passwords of registered users. no one else really has any priveledges so i would not worry about it too much. again, i would recommend changing your password, if you registered here

Vine Park River City Root Beer

this was a very cool surprise! when i ordered some Glewwe’s Castle Root Beer, the brewery offered to send me a bottle of this as it is only available at the brewery which is near him. so very kind! thanks to you again sir!
if i were to imagine just what the root beer made by a beer brewer would taste like, i think this might be it. it is very “solid” and “hearty” if that makes any sense. there is a definite body to it, a presence. although i have never had an actual beer, that is the stereotypical image that beer and beer drinkers are supposed to conquer, at least to me. burly, tough dudes who need to relax with their buds after a grueling week in the coal mines to watch the big boxing match or something. yes, yes i know that that is not how 99% of beer is drank, especially micro brews, but humor me here, ok? i may have a point here eventually, i am not sure what it will be yet, but if i ramble long enough one may occur to me. well, i suppose it is just that when i go to a brewpub or brewery with friends who do drink beer and they also make a root beer, this is what i would expect to get served. tasty, definitely root beer as they don’t deviate from the expected taste much, yet full bodied and strong. not necessarily something you would want to put ice cream in as it would make it less man-ly, but you definitely could and it would be tasty i am sure.
although this place sounds more like a place where you go with your friends or whatever and they help you brew up your own stuff, so perhaps it is much different than the image i have in my head. alas.
Anthony’s Rating: 85
Your Rating: 77
# of ratings:5

Glewwe’s Castle Root Beer

this brew was another one i was very excited to stumble upon the website for as i am sure i would have had no idea it existed if not for my relentless searching of “root beer Minnesota.” and every other state or country or province i could think of that would produce root beer or birch beer or sarsaparilla. i emailed Mark, the brewer, and asked if he shipped his sodas. he quickly replied that he did and would be happy to ship me a bottle of another brand i had on my “wanted” list as he could get it easily. it turns out that that other company had emailed me the day before offering to mailorder some to me, so Mark offered to send a bottle of another brewery in the area which i did not even know about! what a guy!
this soda (and a cream soda too) are all handmade, from bottle washing to brewing to capping to labelling. that is just awesome. especially as it is not yeast carbonated, which makes me happier.
the graphic design on this is not so great, but i think that really only adds to the appeal and personal creation of it. there are spelling errors and about four or five different fonts, that makes me smile. now i am sure some people will complain about me saying this stuff is good in this case but i was not happy with the design on the Windy City yet there are different beasts, this is a personal, handmade product, not really intended for mass distribution or commercial appeal. that one is.
so i think this is the first soda i have had that mixes root beer and birch beer extracts. and i must admit i am intrigued. it is tasty. i would definitely put it in the “root beer” category yet it has a bit of that birch beer wintergreen-ness to it. that right there makes this soda unique, which is something i seem to value in my reviews. this is a strong, flavorful soda. the taste seems to slowly morph and change during drinking, making you pay attention to it. one would be hard pressed to idly down this brew or drink it while doing other tasks without taking that moment to make like the Kool-Aid dude and smile with an “oh yeah!” at least in your thoughts.
in my correspondance with Mark, he asked how i do my ratings, do i assign points to different things like presentation, foam, carbonation, taste, bouquet? the answer is “no.” i think i will write a post about my process sometime soon, but there is not a lot to tell anyway.
i was a bit worried that this would be very generic and lame and i would have to give it a bad review, even after all of the effort gone through for it to end up in my belly. but, happily, that is not the case. the citizens of Spring Lake, MN are lucky, they can go enjoy this anytime they want.
Anthony’s Rating: 91
Your Rating: 88
# of ratings:17

Windy City Root Beer

ah, now this is the last of my trade with the mighty Jon O! i do hope this round of trading ends with a reviewing high note although i have my doubts that this will surpass Chautauqua let alone Rug Rat, both of which i received in this trade round. but who knows? that is why i do this, the surprise of it all. well that and the fame and fortune of course, but that is obvious, isn’t it?
i will admit i had my doubts about this soda before opening it. i suppose different styles of labels and junk often have different tastes that fall in distinct categories. at least in my head. but not in a way i can really define at all. i think since this label looks kind of like a not great photoshop attempt (hey, who am i to talk, check out my lame logo?!) at a old-tyme-ish soda company logo and label. it just seems very rushed and slapped together. but i suppose they may have just spent more time working on the actual contents of the bottle than they did on the bottle design.
my reaction to this is similar to my reaction to the Avery Root Beer, it is good, very good in fact, but it is not distinct. in fact i think i would have no idea which was which if i was given both to taste, told which was which, then had them mixed up and handed back to me to try. this one may be a little tiny bit heavier and it has more foam, but the latter part does not really affect the taste at all.
if i could get this easily in my area, it would definitely be in my house at all times, but it would not be something i would give someone who wanted to experience the variety within the root beer genre. it would though be in the selection i would offer for traditional root beers done right. now if they could get rid of the “and/or corn sweetener” in the ingredients, i would be much happier still.
Anthony’s Rating: 90
Your Rating: 86
# of ratings:8

Avery’s Root Beer

i found out about this company probably a year or two ago. as i drive through Connecticut a couple times a year i figured i would make a side trip at some point and go to their bottling works. but i have not yet done so. thus when this root beer was offered up as part of my big trade with Jon, i picked it. nonetheless i will still go up with to get the rest of their soda line as they have a birch beer and sarsaparilla as well as a diet root and diet birch. so for four new sodas to try, it is definitely worthwhile!
i like the style of this brand too, very old-timey and cool. all of the labels are the same and flavors are distinguished by the bottle caps which also have the ingredient list.
the beverage as a whole though is good. but it does not do a ton for me. yeah, it is tasty and superior to your big market, mass produced soda, but it does not really set itself apart. this could be one of about 10 sodas in a blind taste test. that is not really a bad thing mind you, yet i am trying to distinguish sodas from each other a bit more. there is a very distinct lack of any head or foam although the carbonation level is good. the sweetness level is good, not overly done. flavor-wise, like i have been saying, it is good but i can’t get any more descriptive than shrugging and saying “yup, it is a very yummy root beer.” i would definitely get more as i do like it. i think this review came off as bad but there is no reason not to drink this instead of 95% of the root beers out there.

Anthony’s Rating: 90
Your Rating: 89
# of ratings:5

the wheel of time turns, weaving me in

based on some suggestions i have made a couple of changes around here.
the biggest i guess is that the category pages are in alphabetical order instead of date order. that is, if you click on “sarsaparilla reviews” over on the right there you will get the reviews in alphabetical order instead of seeing the newest reviews first. that seemed to make more sense.
i also think i am about done, for now, with the Availibility page. my googling skills have found me a lot of sodas, about 250 actually, that i have never had. so i guess when people ask me now if i have tried them all, i have a better answer. granted most of these are not bottled so it makes it crazy hard to have them, but i suppose it is a challenge.

one thing that quite surprised me, looking at the category stuff more closely, was the numbers in each. the number of Birch Beers and Sarsaparillas are nearly identical. weird. i really would think Birch Beers were a decent amount more plentiful. but perhaps that is a function of me living in the geographic area where that is the case. most Birch Beers i have found have been from the PA, NJ, CT areas. Sarsaparillas are much more plentiful in the western US i suppose although there are some scattered throughout the nation and a few in other parts of the world (UK, Australia, Philippines, Costa Rica) where there is no root beer.

anyway, i am trying to catch up on reviews but not go so fast that i will run out of stuff quickly. i think i have about 15 sodas in queue in my fridge right now, give or take. after that i am not quite sure what else i can get. so there may be a big lull after February. but there is that whole big list in my sidebar there of sodas i need and would gladly pay postage and obtaining costs on. so anyone in Nova Scotia (hint hint) i could make it worth your while!

alright, back to other stuff.
any comments, suggestions, complaints, let me know.

Chautauqua Root Beer

so i am almost through with the sodas i obtained in my recent trade with Jon. well, ok, maybe i have 3 left, that is a lot. i thought for a bit that this might be my last one but no, it is not. so never mind.
the presentation on this soda is very nice. very good use of color, pretty good fonts and a naked girl with a headband and heels wearing a barrel holding a foaming mug and a bottle, what more could one want from their soda? ok, the girl thing is kind of random but i do mean it that i like their design otherwise.
no one seems quite sure if this drink is still being made or not. there is no mention of it on their website and they have not answered my emails. perhaps no day that mystery will be solved.
i certainly do hope it is still being made though, after tasting it. there is a definitely cinnamon flavor to it that i am very much enjoying. i mean the brown cinnamon, like you put on toast, not the red cinnamon, like Big Red. the taste of this root beer stands out to me, i can’t recall any others that have this much cinnamon flavor while still being very recognizable as root beer. it is very rare indeed that i find root beers i really love and which i would order a case of in a heartbeat, but i would do that for both this and the RugRat root beer of last week. i may just have to go to this “Lakewood, NY” place myself and investigate!
Anthony’s Rating: 95
Your Rating: 100
# of ratings:3