NEWS

Root beer is back. That's right, root beer -- the dark brown stuff, cola's elder brother, the foundation of that most perfect of soda fountain drinks: the root beer float.

Not too long ago, you were lucky to find more than a couple of brands of root beer anywhere. Today, if you look around, you can choose among old favorites, regional brands that have become available here and a raft of novel brews that expand the very definition of root beer. (For good or ill. When you add sage to your recipe, my friend, I just don't think you're really making a root beer anymore.)

The revival might have been spearheaded by craft brewers such as Abita, Gordon Biersch and Goose Island, which have taken to including root beer in their rosters. The brewery connection is quite natural. Root beer is descended from the home-brewed "small beers" that Americans were making in the 18th and 19th centuries with flavors such as ginger, sassafras and spruce. Once upon a time, spruce beer was so common that people regularly boiled the tips of spruce branches so they could have bottled extract on hand for quick use.

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