Root beer
Dad's Old Fashioned Root Beer
Dad's Root Beer · Classic American old-fashioned root beer
Jasper, Indiana, USA
A Depression-era Midwestern classic that still drinks like the platonic ideal of diner-counter root beer. The nose leads with bright wintergreen over birch and sassafras, while the cane-sugar body carries vanilla and a soft licorice-root sweetness into a creamy, float-ready finish. Carbonation is gentle and foamy rather than sharp, and a faint bark bite keeps it from going flat-sweet. The blend of natural and artificial flavoring keeps it a touch simpler than the artisanal tier, but as a nostalgic everyday pour it lands squarely on the mark.
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The maker
Dad's Old Fashioned Root Beer was created in the 1930s by Chicago partners Barney Berns and Ely Klapman, who named it for the dads who once brewed root beer at home for their families; by the late 1940s it was among the most popular root beers in the United States. The brand changed hands several times (IC Industries, then Monarch Beverage), and since 2007 has been owned by Hedinger Brands and licensed to The Dad's Root Beer Company, LLC. It is now bottled by The Dad's Root Beer Company in Jasper, Indiana, which also produces Bubble Up and Dr. Wells.
Ingredients & nutrition
Carbonated Water, Cane Sugar, Caramel Color, Sodium Benzoate (a preservative), Citric Acid, Natural and Artificial Flavors.