Goose Island

The Pooj passes the brick.

(Home Goods, May 2011)

Goose Island owes its existence to an airport delay, an in-flight magazine, and a fondness for locally-produced European craft beers. There’s more to the story of course, but I’ll not bore you with the details. It’s probably enough for us to know that Goose Island founder John Hall, formerly in the packaging industry, decided to open up a craft brewery in the Lincoln Park area of Chicago in 1988 mainly because he did not know of many local beers being produced in the US. Since then, Goose Island has expanded to two brew-pub locations in Chicago where patrons can watch the beer brewing process, and opened a bottling plant from which they produce and distribute the most popular of their craft brews. Lucky for us, they also make root beer!

And lucky we are indeed, since Goose Island does make a good root beer. Initially, I was surprised that there was little scent from the bottle, save for a slight waft of licorice. The dominant flavor is also slightly on the licorice side of things, but it’s very well balanced with the wintergreen, resulting in a solid herb-y taste. Said root-y herb flavor lingers pleasantly on the tongue for a while as well. While it’s also pretty sweet, it’s not overpoweringly so, thus the sugar actually contributes positively to the richness of flavor. From a glass, the scent isn’t really stronger, but there is a nice light head when poured – maybe indication that a foaming agent is used, though none is listed in the ingredients. Oddly enough, the flavor is actually stronger from the bottle than the glass – one would think being able to smell would enhance my perception of flavor, so perhaps there are lingering effects from my recent bout with a cold.

If indeed I still have the vestiges of an illness, my sense of taste may be slightly impaired, and my evaluation may not be entirely accurate. However, given that a stuffy nose usually deadens taste perception, and despite that I still enjoyed the flavors here, things look good for Goose Island. Luckier for us, since it came in a multi-pack, I still have a couple bottles in reserve, so we may indeed revisit Goose Island when I know my cold has completely cleared. Even so, Goose Island Root Beer gets a low 4.