The Pooj wags the root beer.(Galco’s, July 2011)
If the story of Margo’s Bark Root Beer doesn’t make you happy, something’s broken. Young Oscar Youd of Los Angeles wanted to make root beer (more precisely, he wanted to make natural carbonation with yeast and sugar) for his science fair project when he was seven years old, and the results were so successful that his family decided to perfect their recipe, then bottle and sell it. Oscar named his brew after his presumed best friend Margo, a black labrador-pit bull mix whom the Youds adopted from an animal shelter after she was found abandoned in a Long Beach parking lot. All proceeds from sales are donated to animal shelters and other pet-protection programs in honor of Margo’s compatriots.
While I wouldn’t ordinarily recommend drinking every seven year-old boy's science fair project (I think I grew bread mold for the science fair when I was seven...), I’m willing to make an exception here. Initially, the carbonation is very hard, making it really difficult to taste anything. Fortunately this is really the only negative thing I can say about Oscar’s brew because some very good flavors become apparent once the carbonation has dissipated a bit.
The ingredients include molasses, vanilla, cloves, cassia, nutmeg and wintergreen, and are all blended so well that, despite having some potentially overpowering components in the mix, everything comes together quite well to create a very rich, full, root-y flavor. Molasses tends to drown out most other flavors, in my opinion, but is used very well here to add a smooth texture. Adding both cloves and nutmeg might also give you the impression that this would taste like a pumpkin pie, but those spices are also handled very well – I did notice a little more of a clove-leaning scent and potentially a little nutmeg-leaning aftertaste, but I’m not sure if I would have noticed them if I didn’t know they were there and therefore wasn’t looking for them. This, of course, is not an indictment of any sort – as I said earlier, the reason there is no dominant flavor is because everything blends together very well and you taste everything together rather than tasting each individual ingredient separately. Yucca extract is also included and results in a good amount of foam, maybe the lasting legacy of Oscar’s science fair experimentation. Potentially psychologically-induced nutmeg highlights aside, the aftertaste is otherwise bark-y with a menthol-y feel and a sweet finish, perhaps a little too bark-y for some but generally up my alley.
Maybe I’m just getting warm fuzzies from the Margo’s Bark story. Or maybe I’m just biased because this is one of the few Los Angeles-based brews I’ve run across. Perhaps I’ve just had one too many middle-of-the-road root beers as of late. Or perhaps Margo’s Bark Root Beer is just that good. Whatever the case may be, Margo’s Bark gets a 4.5.
If the story of Margo’s Bark Root Beer doesn’t make you happy, something’s broken. Young Oscar Youd of Los Angeles wanted to make root beer (more precisely, he wanted to make natural carbonation with yeast and sugar) for his science fair project when he was seven years old, and the results were so successful that his family decided to perfect their recipe, then bottle and sell it. Oscar named his brew after his presumed best friend Margo, a black labrador-pit bull mix whom the Youds adopted from an animal shelter after she was found abandoned in a Long Beach parking lot. All proceeds from sales are donated to animal shelters and other pet-protection programs in honor of Margo’s compatriots.
While I wouldn’t ordinarily recommend drinking every seven year-old boy's science fair project (I think I grew bread mold for the science fair when I was seven...), I’m willing to make an exception here. Initially, the carbonation is very hard, making it really difficult to taste anything. Fortunately this is really the only negative thing I can say about Oscar’s brew because some very good flavors become apparent once the carbonation has dissipated a bit.
The ingredients include molasses, vanilla, cloves, cassia, nutmeg and wintergreen, and are all blended so well that, despite having some potentially overpowering components in the mix, everything comes together quite well to create a very rich, full, root-y flavor. Molasses tends to drown out most other flavors, in my opinion, but is used very well here to add a smooth texture. Adding both cloves and nutmeg might also give you the impression that this would taste like a pumpkin pie, but those spices are also handled very well – I did notice a little more of a clove-leaning scent and potentially a little nutmeg-leaning aftertaste, but I’m not sure if I would have noticed them if I didn’t know they were there and therefore wasn’t looking for them. This, of course, is not an indictment of any sort – as I said earlier, the reason there is no dominant flavor is because everything blends together very well and you taste everything together rather than tasting each individual ingredient separately. Yucca extract is also included and results in a good amount of foam, maybe the lasting legacy of Oscar’s science fair experimentation. Potentially psychologically-induced nutmeg highlights aside, the aftertaste is otherwise bark-y with a menthol-y feel and a sweet finish, perhaps a little too bark-y for some but generally up my alley.
Maybe I’m just getting warm fuzzies from the Margo’s Bark story. Or maybe I’m just biased because this is one of the few Los Angeles-based brews I’ve run across. Perhaps I’ve just had one too many middle-of-the-road root beers as of late. Or perhaps Margo’s Bark Root Beer is just that good. Whatever the case may be, Margo’s Bark gets a 4.5.
No comments:
Post a Comment