Root beer
Sprecher Root Beer
Sprecher Brewing · Honey, fire-brewed
Glendale, Wisconsin, USA
Sprecher's fire-brewed Milwaukee benchmark leans hard into the sweeter, creamier wing of the category: raw Wisconsin honey and a kettle-caramelized base give it a thick, mouth-coating body and a custard-soft sweetness more than a sharp one. Sassafras and a clean wintergreen lift sit over deep caramel-and-molasses undertones, with vanilla rounding the whole thing toward dessert. Carbonation is deliberately gentle, so it reads slow and rich rather than crisp, and a faint woody, bark-bitter edge keeps the finish from going fully candied. A polarizing pour, but a defining one for anyone mapping the honey-forward, full-bodied end of root beer.
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The maker
Sprecher Brewing Company was founded in Milwaukee in 1985 by Randal Sprecher and is now based in Glendale, Wisconsin; its flagship fire-brewed root beer is its signature product. The extract is prepared in-house in a gas-fired brew kettle that combines raw Wisconsin honey, pure vanilla, and aromatic botanicals, a process that caramelizes the sugars for a rich, creamy result. Four judges ranked it first among 25 American root beers in a 2008 New York Times taste test; the brand has been locally owned since 2020.
Ingredients & nutrition
16 fl oz · 260 cal · 51 g sugar(per serving, as labeled)