A&W in the 70’s – Making Root Beer an Experience
When I was growing up in the 70s, I have vivid memories of going to the A&W Root Beer restaurant on Rosemead Blvd in Pasadena, CA. Besides having the best french fries I have ever tasted, I remember the delicious root beer. The root beer was more than just a drink – it was an immersive taste experience. A&W would freeze their heavy glass mugs, so when the drink was poured, it would freeze on the inner edge of the mug.
The frozen root beer ice, combined with the thick frosty head, the heft of the A&W Mug, and the delicious taste made every trip to A&W a special occasion. I can’t say whether the A&W formula has changed in the intervening 40 years, but after a mass closing of A&W stores during the 80s, the experience was never the same.
Great Craft Beer, Root Too!
Fast forward 20 years to the late 1990s. While I enjoyed various root beers, from A&W to Dad’s to Mug to IBC, I never was able to replicate my childhood visceral experience of a GREAT root beer. The closest I found was the craft root beer which was brewed at Pizza Port in Solana Beach. It was always a struggle for me to choose between their delicious craft beers and my favorite root beer.
However, while traveling in Vermont with my roommate Justin, I was introduced to Virgil’s, and Sprecher’s root beers, and my childhood passion was re-ignited. After looking a little further, I became aware that craft root beers were widespread and there were a ton of flavors to choose from – they just were not sold in any of the major supermarkets. Fortunately, we had two great resources near San Diego, with C’s Ice Cream & Deli and the Old Town Root Beer Shop that sold a huge variety of root beers. But I had caught a bug – I decided it was time to create my own root beers flavors.
Different Flavors from Down Under
With some small brewing supply purchases from HopTech and organic roots and barks from the Ocean Beach People’s Food Coop I was off and running. I started making a wide variety of flavors, including some ginger beers and cream sodas. While I loved the flavors I could make, the process of cutting, roasting, and brewing the root beer was time intensive.
Traveling with my wife in New Zealand, we found and tasted a variety of Kiwi and Australian root and ginger beers, such as Bundaberg. To my surprise and delight, I encountered different base flavors in these beers which were often much more intense. With this discovery, I began to think that a wider variety of flavors might be possible for root beer – perhaps by using a wide variety of extracts, I could create my own unique flavors.
Home Soda for the Masses
Things started to crystallize in my brain when I went to a House Party that some friends hosted, featuring a SodaStream. Here was a way to easily make sodas for the masses, but now we needed an easy way to make interesting flavors. However, with 4 kids under 8, running a business, where would I find the time?
Next blog- the birth of Root Beer Baby…
or was it the birth of Evil?
ps. I tried hard to find the original “A&W Root Beer has that frosty mug taste” song for this blog – but for the life of me, could not track it down – if you have a version of it, I would love it if you could share!