Small Town Brewery Not Your Father's Root Beer (10.7% ABV)

Beer Name: Not Your Father's Root Beer
Brewery: Small Town Brewery (Wauconda, IL; La Crosse, WI)
ABV: 10.7%
How sold: 22 oz bottles; on draft
Where bought: Belmont Station (Portland, OR)
Price: $7.79 for a 22 oz bottle

Date Purchased: June 18, 2016
Date Opened/Drank: June 18, 2016
When brewed? Year-round beer at the brewery, but a limited-time bottle release.

Where distributed: Small Town Brewery is shipping this version to most U.S. states for a limited time during summer 2016. Find out if Small Town Brewery will ship this to your area!

What's on the Bottle: "Limited Edition Brew. We like to think of it as a dark spiced ale with vanilla and honey. Best served chilled or poured in a glass over ice. We know you'll enjoy it. We do."

REVIEW:

Appearance (5%): Poured black into a tulip glass. Frothy tan head, with good carbonation upon pouring. Looks amazing. 4.75/5

Smell (25%): Predominant sweet root beer nostalgia with noticeable alcoholic malt. 4.5/5

Taste (40%): Delicious sweet root beer flavor, with a bit of vanilla and alcoholic malt. Initially reminded me of the Mission Hard Root Beer -- which has a good 3% less ABV. Over time, the octane crept up more and more. Still so dangerous, because these guys get the root beer flavor so close to its soda counterpart. 4.5/5

Mouthfeel (10%): Medium-full bodied; good carbonation. Creamy feel coats the tongue nicely. Another wonderful adult root beer experience. 4.5/5

Overall (20%): An excellent hard root beer. While I would definitely take the 5.9% version over this one as an everyday choice, this too was damn tasty. Small Town Brewery continues to impress me with their spiced ales / hard sodas. I would love to take a trip to their brewery one day, just to get it fresh from the tap. I've also seen a 19% hard root beer advertised from them, and if they ever put that in bottles, I assume they would make it a 12 oz bottle. I'm very excited to see what other hard sodas they can come up with in the interim. 4.5/5

Final Weighted Rating: 4.513/5