Hello everyone. This is my first post. I am mxreb0 and have reviewed 140+ beverages on bevNET. [url] http://bevnet.com/members/reviews/viewreviews_user.asp?user_id=4131 [/url] I have enjoyed root beer for many years now, and perfer strong herbal flavors. I love to pick fresh sassafras tress and smell and chew on the roots and sticks. So much for my intro, now on to my question...

I will be holding a root beer tasting for some friends, and would like to know your suggestions for how to do it. My current plan is to pour all of the brands in to different white cups with codes on them. I will allow everyone to taste, and make comments about each cup on a paper form I will hand out. They will rank them all, and at the end we will reveal the brands.
So far the tasting will include
Virgils (my fav)
Hanks (don't like it)
Blue Sky root beer
Blue Sky encore root beer
Abita
365
Stewerts
Natural Brew
IBC
A&W
Steatz
Boyland's
and maybe something else I have around

Let me know what you think.

Sounds like a good plan. The blind tasting is important. Have some mild food around (crackers?) to 'cleanse the palate'. The remarks are a good idea, that could be entertaining. Oh - be sure to serve it cold.

If you want suggestions for other brands with distinctive tastes, I would recommend Rollies (very dark, won the last two tastings I attended) Ithaca (touch of Juniper) Berghoff's (well-balanced).

Will you be reporting the results somewhere? I'd like to find out if anyone actually liked the Natural Brew, which I detested.
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"It is better to have drunk and tossed
than never to have drunk at all."

I like the Natural Brew pretty well. I can't find those brands you mentioned around here, but they sound great.
I'll post the results and maybe pictures here.
Also anyone near Raleigh may contact me by PM for an invite.

I agree with Arcticpenguin about the importance of cold root beer, and the quality of Natural Brew. Couldn't even take more than one sip of the stuff... Then again - it's all relative.

As for Virgils - I think that stuff grows on you - I don't mind it, it's very licorishy, and the more I drank the more I liked it.

I have had a few Root Beer parties, but never a full on taste panel type thing - I should though. I'm guessing you already finished yours - how did it go?
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~To be truly happy...one must drink as much Root Beer as possible!!~

It went well. I will post the reviews and pictures when I get around to it. Needless to say, we were sick of root beer by the end.