My second craft soda review is unfortunately a different story than my first, as I wasn’t thrilled with this purchase (I’ll tell you why shortly). Ultimately, I feel like if you are going to get into the craft soda game you need to offer something unique or high quality to cover the inflated price point. Between a lot of faux specialty brands out there and other producers, a surprisingly few number of people have figured out a solid market offering that goes beyond what you can get in cheap can at your local supermarket by the dozen.
Grizzly Paw is a craft brewer and soda maker in Canmore, AB that I visited in the summer this past year on a road trip to Drumheller, Calgary and Nelson to visit family and dinosaur bones. They have an impressive facility in town, a colourful tasting room and a fairly large lineup of soda’s which are available on site and in grocery stores all over the province of Alberta. If I recall correctly, I paid about $2 to $2.50 for this single bottle and drank this a couple months ago to ensure it was fresh when I consumed it.
Aroma and Appearance: It pours a dark burgundy colour with a small head that rapidly dissipated and you can clearly hear audible fizzy bubbles popping out of the glass. The aroma is black licorice, confectionery sugar, candy store and chocolate.
Flavour: It starts off with well balanced notes of black licorice up front and nuances of kola nuts, a rather pleasant start beginning that’s unfortunately overshadowed by an artificial mid palate that’s reminiscent of a diet soda before it finishes with a hint of black pepper bite on the aftertaste.
Overall Impression: My biggest beef with certain craft sodas is they often dress up a typical 50 cent can of cheap, mass produced soda into a fancy bottle with a fancy price and I hate to admit, but this root beer tastes no better than a can of no name root beer that sells for $1 per 2L. It’s ok in flavour, but is vastly over priced for what it delivers in the bottle. I also had their ginger beer, it was a bit better than this a likely a good Moscow Mule candidate, but again nothing compared to other craft soda’s I’ve had in the past.
Rating: I gave it a below average rating of 4/10, and would have preferred to save my coin and picked up a can of A&W rootbeer instead.
Food Pairing: Root beers pair well with fast food, maybe use this to cut into some fries or something. Sorry, I’m uninspired here.
Im going to say this once…. Get Annex Ales craft sodas!! 😉 Their rootbeer is good and the Ginger beer is decent…. But… Needs less of a lemon taste to it
On the list now, thanks!