Sprecher Smoky Maple Root Beer

Sprecher takes its fire-brewed maple root beer toward the campfire, and the smoke is the whole story. The brewery calls the smoky finish subtle; drinkers rarely agree. Over a full, syrup-sweet maple and caramel base carrying the house vanilla roundness, a heavy char note arrives early and lingers, drying the finish and largely masking the sassafras and bark underneath. The bright wintergreen that defines the regular Maple is not what registers here — this reads darker, heavier, and more savoury. Cleanly made rather than flawed, but the most divisive bottle in the Sprecher lineup: tasters either prize it as an unusual depth, especially in a float, or find it an acrid mouthful they cannot finish.