We first created our Root Beer in 2015 while Andrew was consulting with Banded Peak (read: teaching them how to brew beer professionally). Andrew made a deal with them where he’d use their equipment, and in exchange he’d share his brewery running experience with them.
"We tried recipe after recipe after recipe. The whole idea in the first place was that I just loved root beer, and I wanted to expand upon what I could make as a brewer & try to apply how beer is made in a craft sense over to soda. That’s literally how we ended up releasing our root beer and making sodas before we even had our own brewery. It gave us a way to start producing something as a company while we were building our brewery."
The Brewing Process
Every time we set out to make Root Beer we lose a week of our lives to just one batch. 6-8 hours to brew and a couple days to carbonate. It took us 36 batches to get it right; which doesn’t feel like a lot until you f*ck something up 35 times in a row.
It’s still one of the most complicated things we make, because it has twelve ingredients. Beer only has four. Beer is more complex on the fermentation side, but trying to balance the flavours of twelve different ingredients and trying to make a new Root Beer recipe from scratch was very difficult.
Nailing It Down
One of the things that really helped was getting Erica involved, she was fresh out of culinary school and working in a culinary position at Village Ice Cream at the time. She was able to recognize when we needed more vanilla or if the wintergreen wasn't really standing out. Having her on the tasting panel to figure out what we needed to add/subtract/change was really important to the process.
So we started brewing our Root Beer at Banded Peak. We were packaging it in these 1L jugs and taking it to trade shows and beer festivals. We’d go with the guys at Banded Peak and just set up at their booth. It was such a cool way to tell people we were going to start a brewery while we were actively building the brewery in the background.
Root Beer’s the first thing we ever made. That’s why we hold it so close.
And so for a long time it was just us making Root Beer and beers, which was kind of a disjointed product offering but that’s just who we were in the beginning—a fairly scrappy operation, rarely making the same beer over again, people would come in and try beers they’d never had before but they’d also be able to come in just for the Root Beer, which started to gain a cult following in Calgary.
Why Do You Love Root Beer?
A note from our co-founder, Andrew
It was a huge challenge to figure out how to make it on a craft scale without having to use a bunch of weird flavours or artificial extracts. We wanted to utilize those base ingredients and build those flavours naturally.
The recipe honestly hasn’t changed much from when we started. We’re never too precious about anything but Root Beer is one thing that we really do hold in the highest regard. It’s our most creative, unique drink.
What Makes Our Root Beer Unique?
It’s made from whole ingredients. Like, literally.
It’s the root, the whole root, and nothing but the root. It's a unique blend of flavours. When you’re reading the ingredient list you can taste every single one of those ingredients.
Ingredients
What gives our Root Beer that nostalgic, quintessential flavour. What you think of when you think of Root Beer. Earthy, spicy, and a little bit herbal.
Warm and cozy. Cinnamon contributes to the complex flavour of our Root Beer. It adds depth while cutting the sweetness.
That mint flavour that gives Root Beer its bite. Adds brightness while being a little cooling. Immediately recognizable, it's not the same without it.
Vanilla does a lot of heavy lifting. It balances out the herbal tones from the Sarsaparilla and Liquorice Root but also adds creaminess. No ice cream required.
Herbal and slightly anise-like, liquorice root adds body and a little bit of sweetness.
Cool Fact About Root Beer:
Wintergreen is important! And the correct amount is important. When we started brewing, Andrew didn’t even include wintergreen as part of the recipe. One day, we were drinking an A&W Root Beer and Erica noticed that they used mint in their recipe. A lot of people don’t know that mint is a dominant flavour in Root Beer. It’s actually what gives it its bite. Of course, then we added too much to a couple batches and ended up with what was basically brown toothpaste. But we got there eventually.
