Best Damn Root Beer

Beer Name: Best Damn Root Beer
Brewery: Best Damn Brewing Co. (St. Louis, MO)
ABV: 5.5%
How sold: Six packs of 12 oz. bottles
Where bought: Times Supermarket (Honolulu, HI)
Price: $9.89 for a six-pack

Date Bottled: "15322LC07" (could be 322nd day of 2015, which is November 18)
Date Purchased: December 28, 2015
Date Opened/Drank: December 28, 2015
When brewed? Year-round beer. Debuted December 2015.

Where distributed: Best Damn Brewing distributes their hard root beer to select areas but likely will keep expanding locations. Click here for their locator!

What's on the Website: "We called our Root Beer mission 'Throw back a throwback.' Our delicious, easy drinking BEST DAMN Root Beer is aged on real vanilla beans during the brewing process for a full-flavored, well-balanced take on one of our favorite classic tastes." Click here for more!

REVIEW:

Appearance (5%): Pours black to extremely dark brown into a glass. Very carbonated, with many tiny bubbles. No head. 4/5

Smell (25%): Significant aromas of vanilla bean and birch. Also traits of a cream soda. 4/5

Taste (40%): A pleasing mix of vanilla, birch, licorice, and other spices. Sweetness kept in check. Traits of a cream soda. Very similar to Coney Island Root Beer; definitely not as sweet as Not Your Father's Root Beer. To me, it's also one of the better hard root beers to use for a hard root beer float; no alcoholic aftertaste and mixes well with vanilla bean ice cream. I would like it sweeter by itself (like NYFRB), but it's among the top ones to get for floats. 4/5

Mouthfeel (10%): Medium to medium-light body, carbonated. 3.5/5

Overall (20%): A decent hard root beer. While it lacks the nostalgia I have gotten from NYFRB, it is among the best when it comes to hard root beer floats; the vanilla creaminess and lack of off-putting alcohol flavors being some of the top reasons. Best Damn Root Beer probably got some bonus points from me as a result. The parent company here is Anheuser Busch, which of course is responsible for beers such as Budweiser. It's a slightly cheaper hard root beer than others. At the end of the day, it's certainly an acceptable option if you want a hard soda. 3.75/5

Final Weighted Rating: 3.9/5