woo hoo, is this good! the honey is at just the right levels and it has a very slight birchy / wintergreen taste. perhaps that is one of the “botanical extracts” or something. not to say it tastes like a birch beer at all since this is a root beer taste. there are some other spices present that give it a bit of an edge, a kick, a bite if you will, i would guess anise is present. one of the best root beers i have ever had. they take the traditional “root beer taste” and add exactly what is needed to improve on it.
so it seems like the Knox family (who brew this stuff) sent out samples to a few other root beer reviewing sites, so i was reading what they thought of it just now. of course people disagree (Spike!) but i am right on this one, trust me.
Anthony’s Rating: 95
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User’s Rating: 86
# of ratings:498
| Type: | Root Beer | Comes In: | 22oz glass bottle |
| Available: | CA, online | Obtained in: | mail from company |
| Head: | Medium | Sweetener: | cane sugar, honey |
| Caffeine: | No | ||
| Website: | http://www.sparkysrootbeer.com/ | ||
Ingredients: carbonated filtered water, pure cane sugar, honey, natural botanical extracts, imitation flavoring, spices, sodium benzoate to preserve freshness, phosphoric acid, caramel color
Wow, what a world of Difference in tastes, I gave this one a 20, My friends thought it was awful, we al felt it had an “Off” taste to it. Rick b
Good goodness…I have been obsessed with root beer ever since helping my grandmother bottle her own homemade stuff back in the day (and helping her clean up after the bottles exploded in the pantry) and find myself on a constant quest for The Parfect Root Beer.
I. Have. Found. It!
Sparky’s is, quite simply, perfect. Spicy, but not abrasive, smooth, but not passive, heady, but not synthetically foamy. Since our first taste, my boyfriend and I have ordered a case a month…not the healthiest of habits, sure, but we literally cannot help ourselves. This stuff is just too good to be true!
The only people that tend not to like Sparky’s, are the folks that think that grocery store, A&W, “cream soda crap” is root beer. Sparky’s is a real root beer. It’s the very best I have ever had, and I’ve tried just about every root beer on earth. I make my own root beer too, and it makes me frustrated sometimes that I can’t beat Sparky’s!
Anyway, if you haven’t tried it, do so asap — it’s a truly amazing root beer. TIP: for some reason, the small bottles tend to be sweeter than the big bottles… I prefer the big bottles 🙂
From a root beer aficinado who brews his own at home (old fashioned yeast style)… I just tried Sparky’s for the first time last week and returned to my local specialty shop to buy them out. This is easily one of the best root beers out there. I agree 100% that anyone who doesn’t like Sparky’s needs to stick to the stuff you pick up at the local minute mart. This is artisan root beer here folks.
I don’t know if it was a weird bottle, but the wintergreen is off the charts. If you try to guzzle it’s almost like drinking listerine.
I’m with Rick and Matthew’s post and can say that I didn’t really enjoy this much at all (and I’m not an A&W fan by any stretch). It might’ve been a bum bottle, but the flavors/spices together were quite muddled with an overpowering taste of wintergreen. One of my buddies swears by it, but I just didn’t enjoy the taste. Maybe I’ve just got to try another bottle, a large one as one of the other reviews suggests, before giving giving it an honest rating.
I thought this was awfull. Perhaps I tried it to early in the morning. If i GET ANOTHER, i WILL TRY IT AGAIN ONLY LATER IN THE DAY.
Oh my god. This stuff is AMAZING. It’s made close to home, too. I just got a case of it to sell in the shop–I may end up drinking it all before anyone has a chance to buy any. It’s that good. We’re talking life changing good. I thought I had died and gone to heaven when Tower Root Beer came in, but this one edged Tower out by a nose.
This root beer was offish for me. It had that desirable root beer flavor, yet the only problem was that it had waaaaaaaay too much mint. As another commenter put it, “If you try to guzzle it’s almost like drinking listerine”. This is so true. I couldn’t even finish the bottle because the mint made it taste gross to me. Maybe if they would have called it “Sparky’s Mint Root Beer” then that would have been more appropriate. Unfrotunately, I am not the biggest fan of mint. I do have an appreciation for it, and I don’t mind it being in my root beer. A fine example would be Capt’n Eli’s root beer which has a small tinge of mint and the spices don’t overpower one another. Overall I’d have to say not to buy Sparky’s root beer unless you love mint. It’s a 48 out of 100 for me.
This is the best root beer ever. I have tried almost every specialty root beer I can find at local stores and this is hands down the best. I am not a fan of mint at all. I do not know why people are comparing this to listerine, please… Troll much? Anyways it has a strong finish which some people may not like. But by no means should it be classified as a mint root beer. So all those people moaning about the finish and not being able to handle it… Like the previous poster suggested, go back to your A&W or whatever and leave the real root beer for the rest of us. This is a life changing root beer and if you do not like it, no worries but I would guess 9 out of 10 people would love it.
Well, this is certainly a polarizing root beer. At the risk of being politically incorrect, I found it too heavy on the wintergreen. It was as if wintergreen certs were used in brewing it. I am OK with aggressive root beers, but this one’s aggression goes at an angle that doesn’t work for me. Does this make me a pathetic ignoramus, as determined by previous reviewers? I hope not. A reviewer above compared this to Tower, saying it edged out Tower. My bottle of Sparky’s was so utterly different than Tower, I am not sure how they could be competing for someone’s top spot. Maybe someone accidentally spilled the entire pot of wintergreen into my batch.
Wow, I hated this one so bad I actually poured it out after the second sip. Tasted like water with soap in it to me. Strange because I really love root beers with a kick. I just thought this one was terrible. Very weak soapy taste for real. No aggressive taste like others are reporting. Maybe a bad bottle? I do have another bottle I’ll my son have it and see what he thinks.
I love this root beer. I love the distinctive flavor… strong, herbal, molasses. By the comments, there is no in between; you’re in or you’re out. It’s the same for those who are on board with fruity beer or they are not. (I am not). This one seems to be a love/hate root beer and I LOVE IT.
Awful! I ordered this as one of 12 top root beers to sample. This was bottle number 7 and it is dead last. Bitter mouthwash mint taste on top of palate after swallowing. Gonna have to try a sweet one next to put this one behind me.
I don’t know why I never looked it up, but ever since I tasted this root beer back in 2009, I have NEVER found a root beer that came close. It’s perfectly spicy, rich… I have tried root beer from literally every state I’ve been to, and nothing has the bite or the robustness. I’m glad I finally looked it up. Gonna buy a case or three. 10/10 for me.