Root beer

Fitz's Root Beer

Fitz's Soda · Cane sugar craft root beer

St. Louis (University City), Missouri, USA

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A hand-batched St. Louis classic bottled since 1947, Fitz's leans into a deep, old-fashioned root beer profile built on more than a dozen botanicals, with sassafras and wintergreen pushed to the front. Cane sugar gives it a full, rounded body, while wild cherry bark, star anise, and vanilla bean fill in the mid-palate and trail into a long, slightly woody finish. It drinks bold and traditional rather than soft or creamy, a benchmark for anyone chasing the heavier end of the root beer spectrum.

Taste profile
Flavor fingerprint for Fitz's Root BeerSweetness 4 of 5, Carbonation 3 of 5, Body 4 of 5, Creaminess 3 of 5, Bitterness 2 of 5, Spice-heat 1 of 5, Aroma intensity 4 of 5, Finish 4 of 5SweetnessCarbonationBodyCreaminessBitternessSpice-heatAromaFinish

Objective sensory intensities (how it tastes) — not a liking score.

Flavor wheel
Flavor wheel for Fitz's Root BeerHighlighted: Root & sassafras, Wintergreen & birch, Anise & licorice, Vanilla & cream, Woody & bark.RootWintergreenAniseSpiceVanillaCaramelWoodyHerbalOff-notes

Our editorial notes.

Scores

Our score
42/50
What drinkers think
8/9
early estimate
Critics vs. the crowd
-4
A crowd favorite

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The maker

Fitz's traces its root beer to a 1947 recipe first made at a drive-in hamburger stand in the St. Louis suburb of Richmond Heights. The brand was revived in 1993 when Fitz's reopened as a restaurant and microbrewery on the Delmar Loop in University City, Missouri, where it bottles on a refurbished 1940s bottling line salvaged from a Wisconsin barn. It remains a St. Louis-based, family-style operation that makes its cane-sugar root beer on site.

Ingredients & nutrition

Filtered carbonated water, cane sugar, natural flavors, caramel color, vanillin, sodium benzoate (preservative), citric acid.