Cruisin' for Root Beer, Part 2: Gold Rush Brewery

The Pooj rolls out the barrel.

 (The Flying Squirrel – Skagway, June 2012)

Although the warm aroma of fresh popcorn wafting onto the blustery boardwalk lured us into The Flying Squirrel, the promise of draft root beer quickly waylaid me. The barrel-shaped tap stuck out more than a little on the coffee bar (which, for the record, is not actually the popcorn producer - they appear to only share the storefront), but it took little persuasion by the barista for me to get a nice large glass of its content. Said content is the product of the Gold Rush Brewery, also called the Sluice Box Brewery, a brew house located on the Skagway River, just north of Squirrel's landing in the main drag of Skagway. We actually drove right past the brewery en route to visit the sled dogs mentioned in passing in the last posting, but since we were on a bus, it probably would have been bad form to grind the entire tour to a halt because I wanted a root beer. No matter though, seeing as we ended up getting root beer anyways (which technically we did already, since Glacier Brewhouse actually made our acquaintance less than an hour before this...)!

Gold Rush Brewery opened in 2008 at the Klondike Gold Fields, one of those touristy places where you can pay $20 for the opportunity to dredge-mine yourself a $10 fortune in gold. Though Klondike Gold Fields has been around since 1999, I'm not certain as to their formal relationship with Gold Rush Brewery, nor if the brewery was opened at the behest of the gold panning extravaganza or simply moved in from elsewhere. Klondike certainly advertises Gold Rush heavily on its website, so there's certainly, if nothing else, a beneficial working relationship between the two.

While I wouldn't say Gold Rush Brewery makes the mother lode of root beers, it's certainly showing me a little flake. It produces a thick layer of bubbles from the tap – not really head, mind you, just bubbles – that dissipates before the glass reaches my hand. There's a slightly molasses-y, slightly licorice-y flavor that gives way to a slightly birch-y sweetness. Overall, it's got a somewhat root-beer-candy flavor, except not as sweet and with a licorice-y aftertaste, though everything on the whole is rather mild. My glass had quite a bit of ice in it, which may have diluted the flavors, so it's hard to say for sure.

I paid $5 for a 20 oz. glass of Gold Rush Brewery Root Beer, which kind of works out same as paying $20 to get $10 of gold when I consider that this may have only been a $2.50-worthy root beer. Perhaps the equivalent proportions do tell of a greater connection between Gold Rush/Sluice Box and Klondike Gold Fields... But perhaps I'm being too harsh - I would say the root beer is probably worth closer to $3 by those standards, which is exactly the rating I would give it. Gold Rush Brewery Root Beer therefore gets a high 3.