Boylan's Creamy Red Birch Beer

The Pooj embraces the differences.

(Big Lots, February 2011)

As promised in my earlier Boylan post, I returned to the scene of the crime (…purchase…) to get some of Boylan’s Birch Beer for comparison purposes. While I did not find any of the original-recipe birch beer, I did find some of their Creamy Red Birch Beer, which, as it turns out, I like a lot more than their root beer. I can’t really speak to the differences between the Creamy Red and the Original Birch Beer(s), but I can confirm my reasoning for not liking their root beer – namely the overly-licorice-y flavor and lack of any other herb flavor. One can probably assume that birch, wintergreen or otherwise, is the main flavoring in a birch beer, and there is a very nice birch root-y-ness here (this may also indicate that I tend to like a little more birch in my root beers, even though my reaction to Trader Joe’s Vintage may indicate that I don’t like that much more birch). The absence of other herbs typically associated with root beers leaves the aftertaste slightly bark-y, and ever so slightly bitter, but the added vanilla more than compensates for that. Curiously, Boylan Root Beer had an almost fruity flavor to me despite the absence of fruit in the ingredients, whereas Boylan’s Creamy Red Birch Beer includes fruit juices for color, yet tastes less fruity to me than the Root Beer. Said fruit juices are not on the Original Birch Beer ingredient list, which shouldn’t make that big of a difference in taste, but the formerly said vanilla is also missing from the Original Birch Beer, so that may potentially make a big difference.

Either way, I still like Boylan’s Creamy Red Birch Beer. I have a theory that mixing the Creamy Red Birch Beer into the Boylan Root Beer – the extra licorice of the Root Beer blending with the extra birch of the Creamy Red – could potentially create a root beer to my liking, but I’m not sure if that’s enough of a theory to qualify for a SCIENCE! posting. Since I’m not really in the business of rating non-root beer beverages here (though I suppose I’m not really in the business of rating root beer beverages here either, since it’s not really a business … yet … :) ), I don’t think it’s necessary to really give it a number. However, if I had to, I would give Boylan’s Creamy Red Birch Beer a high 3.5, not quite a 4.