Reading Draft

The Pooj hears the train a comin', rolling round the bend.

(Rocket Fizz Pasadena, October 2011)

Way back in 1833, the Pennsylvania and Reading Railroad, one of first railroads in US, shipped coal from the Northeast Pennsylvania Coal Region to Philadelphia.  Reading Draft Birch Beer and Universal Carbonics was established nearly a century later (and incidentally, very shortly before Pennsylvania and Reading Railroad changed its name to Reading Company) in Reading, PA near the train station, bearing the image of a Reading Railroad steam engine on its label. The company slow-carbonates its beverages using a process that introduces carbon dioxide into the beverage at low pressure, by way of a stainless carbonation stone. Lower pressure allows the liquid to slowly absorb the carbonation as it cools, resulting in smaller bubbles that supposedly last longer and allegedly smooth out the texture.

Indeed the bubbles are small, but I wouldn't necessarily characterize the texture as smooth. Despite having all those small bubbles, there's no head at all. The scent is odd -- somewhere between paste and a fried corn tortilla. Initially, the taste makes me think I'm licking an envelope, later developing into some sour notes, all the while still smelling like glue. Although my taste buds get more accustomed to the flavor as I drink more, the flavor itself doesn't improve. For the life of me, I can't pick out anything I would typically consider a root beer herb/spice -- no sassafras, no wintergreen, no licorice, not even any birch. Maybe this is somebody's idea of "root" flavor, but unfortunately it's not mine.

There is thankfully a silver lining to the dark cloud that is bad root beer. Reading Draft's website offers some interesting root beer history, which may explain why so many root beer companies are based in Pennsylvania (which may be old news to everyone but me, so bear with me here...). Mennonites and Amish, the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch, immigrated to the US from southern and central Germany and settled in what was known at the time as Penns Woods. Since their religious practices forbade the consumption of alcohol, they brewed soft drinks instead: birch beer, root beer, white birch, and sarsaparilla. We thus owe them a debt of gratitude.

And while I do owe Reading Draft a debt of gratitude for that tidbit of root beer trivia, I don't think I'll be feeling particularly gracious for their root beer anytime soon. With that in mind, I give Reading Draft Root Beer a 1.