Rachel's Ginger Beer: A Seattle-based venture, Rachel's ginger beer is available at restaurants around the city but has a mix of ginger + fruit concoctions available on tap at its Pikes Place shop. I opted for the classic, and it definitely tasted fresh, inducing a sharp tingly feeling in the back of your throat. I've made ginger beers from scratch at home that taste very similar. In other words, there's an important distinction to make: it tasted homemade, but not artisanal. Not as balanced as I hoped it would b... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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Rogue Voodoo Doughnuts pretzel, raspberry, and chocolate ale: I generally don't drink beer, but I sampled this one in the name of snacks. This ale was inspired by a flavored doughnut from the Voodoo Doughnuts shops in Portland. The chocolate and raspberry flavor came through in the finish, and perhaps the pretzel flavor was captured in the earlier savory notes. Not something I can imagine drinking a full cup, but interesting.
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Roxbury Mountain Maple Maple Lemon Ginger Beer: Soda from farmers market are almost always a gamble. They’re rarely labeled with nutrition facts and sometimes don’t even have an ingredients list. Yet, the mere fact that they’re only available directly from small producers is often appealing enough for me to want to try them. There was no question when I saw this intriguing combination of maple with lemon and ginger. Remarkably, the soda tastes purely of those three flavors and nothing else. The ginger is prominent and spicy, the maple add... (read more) 4.5/5.0
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Saranac Ginger Beer: Ginger beer from upstate NY. Good level of ginger spice. Could do with more carbonation and a little less sugar. 3.5/5.0
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Seabold Ginger Beer: When in LA, you may stumble across a glass bottle of ginger beer with a hand-written expiration date less than a month away. It feels hefty, matching its $7.50 price tag, with a misty yellow hue. Its packaging instructs you to invert and gently mix, enabling the ginger sediments disperse throughout. The drink is balanced – not too sweet with a good dose of lemon juice and a decent level of spice that fades as quickly as it arrives. It's not quite as good as the absolute best ginger beer ... (read more) 4.5/5.0
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