The Pooj leaves to answer the call of nature. (Whip a Peel, Solvang, September 2010)
The tiny town of Solvang sits approximately 30 minutes inland from Santa Barbara, a Danish bastion amid the Spanish colonialism of neighboring Santa Ynez. Named “sunny field” in Danish, this quaint tourist trap is certainly a sunny and fieldy collection of bakeries, trinket shops, Hans Christian Andersen paraphernalia, and cased meat with funny names – not the place you’d expect to spawn a root beer posting, but here we are nonetheless.
Natural Brew chilled in the display case at a frozen yogurt joint among other root beer delights (ones that are readily available close to home, which will be covered in later posts) and made me forget the hankering for frozen dairy that brought me inside to begin with. Unfortunately, it took me a while after returning home to even get around to trying it, since there were several other root beers already in the queue (as well as some SCIENCE!), so there was neither root beer nor dairy to be had that day.
When I finally got to it, the Natural Brew slapped me around a bit for making it wait. Seriously, this is one root-y root beer. The predominant flavors are as “complex” as the label states, very earthy, and taste very much like other roots I’ve tasted in the past (there are lots of commonly used roots in my native cuisine) – probably owing to the licorice root figuring prominently in the ingredients. Other ingredients include bourbon vanilla extract (since I’ve never had bourbon before, I actually don’t know if this made that much of an impact on the flavor beyond being the vanilla delivery instrument) and your usual root beer suspects: anise, sarsaparilla, birch oil, and wintergreen oil. In truth, the root actually overwhelms the herbs. There was also another very familiar flavor – almost fruity – but I couldn’t quite place it. All in all though, it was too much for my liking.
Herein lies the inherent pitfall of all subjective reviews – while I can say that Natural Brew is a very well conceived, very well executed root beer, I can’t really say it was really that well-liked, at least by me. The quality is very evident, but I would probably choose several other root beers before drinking this one again. I would definitely recommend other root beer lovers try it, but I think I prefer a little less complexity in my beverage; I might pass on it next time I’m in Solvang – I’d give it a 3.
We also stopped at an ostrich farm on our way out of town…
The Pooj gets a little piece of home.
The tiny town of Solvang sits approximately 30 minutes inland from Santa Barbara, a Danish bastion amid the Spanish colonialism of neighboring Santa Ynez. Named “sunny field” in Danish, this quaint tourist trap is certainly a sunny and fieldy collection of bakeries, trinket shops, Hans Christian Andersen paraphernalia, and cased meat with funny names – not the place you’d expect to spawn a root beer posting, but here we are nonetheless.
Natural Brew chilled in the display case at a frozen yogurt joint among other root beer delights (ones that are readily available close to home, which will be covered in later posts) and made me forget the hankering for frozen dairy that brought me inside to begin with. Unfortunately, it took me a while after returning home to even get around to trying it, since there were several other root beers already in the queue (as well as some SCIENCE!), so there was neither root beer nor dairy to be had that day.
When I finally got to it, the Natural Brew slapped me around a bit for making it wait. Seriously, this is one root-y root beer. The predominant flavors are as “complex” as the label states, very earthy, and taste very much like other roots I’ve tasted in the past (there are lots of commonly used roots in my native cuisine) – probably owing to the licorice root figuring prominently in the ingredients. Other ingredients include bourbon vanilla extract (since I’ve never had bourbon before, I actually don’t know if this made that much of an impact on the flavor beyond being the vanilla delivery instrument) and your usual root beer suspects: anise, sarsaparilla, birch oil, and wintergreen oil. In truth, the root actually overwhelms the herbs. There was also another very familiar flavor – almost fruity – but I couldn’t quite place it. All in all though, it was too much for my liking.
Herein lies the inherent pitfall of all subjective reviews – while I can say that Natural Brew is a very well conceived, very well executed root beer, I can’t really say it was really that well-liked, at least by me. The quality is very evident, but I would probably choose several other root beers before drinking this one again. I would definitely recommend other root beer lovers try it, but I think I prefer a little less complexity in my beverage; I might pass on it next time I’m in Solvang – I’d give it a 3.
We also stopped at an ostrich farm on our way out of town…
The Pooj gets a little piece of home.
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