With the renewed interest in the Moscow Mule, demand for ginger beer skyrocketed and visionary distillers like Western Son saw an opportunity to not only expand their bottom line but to showcase the spirit they’d worked so hard to create.  Enter Western Son Texas Ginger Beer.

The can design (printed on a plastic wrap and not directly on the can itself) builds off the branding of their vodka bottles with its bold type on a field the color of aged paper.  It gives the impression of an Old West wanted poster and catches, holds the eye.  Black rings the lower third of the can, providing a pleasing contrast.  Around back, the reason the drink exists is made plain.  It’s the recipe for a “Western Mule,” consisting of Western Son vodka and Western Son ginger beer. 

The uninspiring ingredient list also graces the back of the can.  Anything delectable sits locked behind the amorphous “natural flavors” while preservatives and additives get spelled out.  The list includes sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, gum acacia and ester gum.  While sporting a couple of these is common, seeing them all is unusual.  What’s even rarer is the use of high fructose corn syrup as the sweetener.  A review encountered it only one other time.  Also present, caramel color richens the presentation.  Water and citric acid round out the list, which amounts to 150 calories for an 8oz serving, a staggering 225 for the 12oz can.

As expected, the liquid appears darker than most ginger beers with what seems to be a fine sediment suspended within it, not floating but locked in place.  Few bubbles ascend during the pour.  The nose detects a light ginger with a hint of citrus.  Tasting, a flash of sweetness precedes the almost immediate arrival of ginger and citrus.  A constant undercurrent of sweetness runs beneath the floating haze of the ginger.  The sharpness of the citrus is pronounced but not overpowering.  There’s a mild syrupy quality laying upon the tongue.  Heat never arrives.  The finish offers more of the same, tart and ginger running parallel.

Overall there’s not much of a progression.  What it is in the beginning is what it is in the middle is what it is in the end.  Other ginger beers play a bit more in the mouth but this is content to sit still.  The balance though between the ginger and citrus sets it apart.  It’s perfectly tuned and the two flavors complement each other well.  The energy here comes from the tang but it could use a touch of heat and a bit more carbonation to really make it dance. 

The mouthfeel is odd too.  The thick feeling pressing upon the tongue gives the sensation of drinking a flat soda.  It’s mild though and not a huge issue.  The citrus and ginger mostly make up for the concerns but that 225 calories equal a steep price for a flawed treat.  One of these is enjoyable but one of these is enough.

Final Decision: Third Tier – Enjoyable

Purchased locally at: Spec’s

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Newly released is their line of premium mixers, aimed squarely at the upscale market where Fever-Tree and Q reign.  Like those competitors, they eschew artificial ingredients such as sweeteners and preservatives.  The line includes a tonic water with a light version, a club soda and this premium ginger beer.

The elegant clear-glass bottle holding 8.45oz (250ml) of ginger beer resembles some vintage White Rock bottles with its conical funnel shape and allows the liquid itself to become part of the color palette.  It complements nicely the rosy beige of the background field with its slightly more saturated ornamentation around the edges.  For the Premium line the logo has seen a complete overhaul.  While the usual logo looks accessible and established, it does say “mass-produced soft drink” pretty clearly.  This new one presents as upscale with its angular serifs and swooping strokes.  This effect is magnified by the pleasant amount of negative space on each side, giving the design room to breathe and emphasizing the elegance of it all.  The fairy girl who normally sits upon the white rock found above the logo instead perches on the bottle cap, looking closer to renaissance art than the 50’s-style of the classic line.  The final effect looks the part: elegant and upscale and ready to battle it out with Fever-Tree.

There are only four ingredients listed on the label: carbonated water, sugar, citric acid and natural flavor.  It’s a far cry from the oils, gums and starches listed on their standard ginger beer. The 250ml amounts to 110 calories.  That would be 156 for 12oz, just for comparison’s sake.

A soft haze graces the liquid with a nose of strong ginger and a tart zing.  There’s first the gentle rise of a mild sweetness tugging along an enthusiastic inflation of ginger.  Tartness zips about, rising to meet the ginger before ebbing away in step.  Heat sneaks in for the climax, typical in its intensity, leaving prickly footprints tip-tapping upon the tongue.  As the flavor falls away, sweetness and tart are the last to go.

With layered flavor and great-tasting ginger, this is a much better ginger beer than the standard version.  The tart elevates it, hitting just the right pitch to make the ginger sing.  While there’s nothing really ground-breaking or exotic here like Fever-Tree’s three gingers sourced from two continents, this really is a ginger beer done very well.  With it, White Rock now seems poised to wedge into that juicy upscale battle fought on store shelves every day.

Final Decision: Second Tier – Alluring

Purchased locally at Spec’s

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Whoever lies at the heart of Wild Spur gave the world a 170-calorie ginger beer, made with familiar ingredients like carbonated water, sugar and natural flavor as well as some unusual too, like modified food starch, glyceryl abietate and brominated vegetable oil.  The latter three sound arcane but they essentially keep the liquid from separating and thicken it up just a tick.

There’s a western theme to the label on this 12-ounce, long-neck bottle.  A shiplap background underlays a rope-wrapped illustration of a mounted cowboy at sunset.  Nautical stars float nearby.  The logo is as western as a cattle drive with a boot-shaped “L” and a spur branching off the “U.”  Taken as a whole, the label certainly drives home the idea of a drink from another era.  It’s not inspired design but it gets the message across just fine.

The bouquet is sweet ginger with a hint of spiciness.  A pour reveals generous carbonation but no sediment in this apple-juice-colored beverage.  Tasting immediately takes an unexpected turn.  Wild Spur begins drier than the scent would suggest though still mildly sweet.  Ginger then envelops the tongue, carrying a notable dose of heat and prickle interlaced with a bit of citrus.  The finish offers another twist as the sweetness implied by the nose finally shows up.  Heat lingers on the tongue and lips.

Some ginger beers stretch their legs a bit, mixing in unique flavors like apple or salt.  Like the label design promises, Wild Spur eschews that adventurousness, delivering a traditional flavor experience.  It delights with a well-tuned level of heat, above average for sure.  It possesses substantial body, with a bit of a cola feel and is pleasant to drink.  While it can’t be called a stand-out, it is quite good, somehow deepening the mystery of its origins.

Final Decision: Third Tier – Enjoyable

Purchased at: Beverages Direct | Available online at: Antiqology, Binny’s

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A mostly clear label wraps the clear and colorless long-neck bottle, giving a clear look at the contents.  The logotype is gracefully understated, stepping back to let “Spicy Ginger” take the spotlight.  The streamlined banner enveloping them overlays a photograph of a sprawling ginger root, a hint as to what to expect from this craft soda.  The reserved, mature design sets it apart from most of its competition, suggesting a beverage tuned for the adult palate.  Conspicuously missing is a designation as ale or beer.

Carbonated water forms the bedrock here with sugar as the sweetener.  This 180-calorie drink gets its taste by way of the amorphous “natural flavor” and there’s citric acid for tang.  Altogether few ingredients are found, the only others being a preservative and caramel color.

There’s sweetness when smelling and ginger too in this amber-colored beverage.  How does it taste?  Imagine a party.  Walk through the door and a throng of sugars rush up, all speaking loudly at once, escalating in volume.  Ginger stands behind and waves a bit but can’t get more than a couple of words out without being talked over.  In frustration, ginger walks away.  The sugars ease up a bit and there’s a clipped glimpse of lime, looking bored.  Finally, the sugars thin out and exit a few at a time until they’re gone.  The last one there is earthiness who gives a smile on the way out. Heat never showed and prickles skipped this one.  Can’t blame them.

Interestingly, it feels a bit creamy in the mouth but the centerpiece is fruity sweetness, cranked up until it drowns out everything else.  A touch of heat could probably improve the experience.  After all it’s called Spicy Ginger; a little heat seems appropriate. 

Putting a designation on it proves difficult.  It tightropes between ginger ale and beer, not so sedate as an ale, not so aggressive as a beer. Either way it’s too sweet, not spicy enough and too little ginger flavor.  Find your next ginger beer fix somewhere else.

Final Decision: Fifth Tier – Skippable

Purchased locally at: Shell | Available online (often labelled Goose Island) at: Antiqology, Soda4u, Specialty Sodas

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Werewolf Howling Ginger Beer, bathed in moonlight, emerges from Orca Beverage in Mukilteo, Washington, north of Seattle.  Orca bottles a ton of retro sodas, over a hundred, many well-known like Dad’s Root Beer.  To be clear, they don’t own many of these brands but they do manufacture and bottle them.  Who owns Werewolf isn’t immediately clear but the smart money is on Orca.

The bottle’s a standard brown-glass long-neck with a generic cap but creativity dwells in the label.  On it the silhouette of a furry werewolf howls at the giant full-moon dominating a green sky.  An ominous castle perches on the mountain behind him (or her).  Red eyes narrow in its skull, the color matching the “Werewolf” logotype.  It’s got a classic horror look to it and is absolutely perfect for Halloween.

A serving generates 160 calories.  As expected, carbonated water makes up the lion’s share of the content.  Cane sugar and honey provide the sweet taste and “natural ginger flavor” gives the natural ginger flavor.  There’s a bit of citric acid too and hot pepper extract (almost certainly containing capsaicin) to add some heat.  Maltodextrin is listed too, usually affecting mouthfeel, and sodium benzoate acts as a preservative.

Generous fizz appears when poured, the liquid a pale pink the hue of a rosé yet cloudy like a proper ginger beer, filtered though, no sediment drifts within.  It smells richly of ginger, sweetness entwined. 

The taste is a treat.  Sweetness comes on but in control, finely tuned, not as strong as the nose would indicate.  Ginger swells quickly with a pleasant intensity as prickles blanket the tongue.  There’s the brief zing of citrus at the climax followed by an earthy sweetness as the progression fades.  A formidable heat persists, strong, yes, but not overpowering.  The hot pepper extract blends perfectly with the ginger’s heat, the line between the two indiscernible.

Werewolf possesses an excellent ginger flavor, tasting not at all artificial.  The balance is bang-on too.  While the branding portends a novelty, something bought for a Halloween party to generate a few chuckles, the quality here is undeniable.  The taste is abounding and flavorful, far better than it needed to be to sell briskly during the season.  Surprises this time of year usually bring on a bit of fright, but in this case there’s a smile, some nodding and an enthusiastic thanks.

Final Decision: Second Tier – Alluring

Purchased locally at: World Market. Also available online at: Antiqology, Soda Pop Stop.

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White Rock is perhaps best known for their cocktail mixers like tonic water and club soda so it stands to reason that ginger beer would eventually be on offer, especially now that Moscow Mules and Dark n’ Stormies have made a comeback.  So, in 2016 that prophecy came true as the first ginger beers rolled off the line, into stores everywhere and eventually into my stomach.

The container is a green-tinted, one-liter plastic bottle of the type you might find holding a Sprite.  Unless you’re sharing it, the large bottle might be too much to finish in one night and the quality suffers by the second or third day. Squat ten-ounce glass bottles, of the sort their club soda might be in, appeared at the store after writing this. They’re preferable.

The label design is dominated by an enormous White Rock logo floating over a mocha field adorned with symbols and wording evocative of fun and good times.  A yellow band wraps the bottom of the label and features the words GINGER BEER in an attractive slab-serif typeface.  It looks corporate and focus-grouped. The design won’t impress many graphic designers (what does?) but it’s better than a lot of other ginger beer labels and that’s something.

While reviewing Sioux City Ginger Beer I noticed it was distributed by White Rock so I immediately wondered if perhaps they were the same drink in different bottles.  Both have calorie counts of 190; both have practically the same ingredient list, just the wording is a bit different: purified carbonated water in Sioux City versus triple-filtered carbonated water in White Rock.

So, during my Sioux City tasting I popped open a bottle of White Rock as a comparison.  Same ginger flavor, same level of sweetness, same level of heat, same exact thing. 

That means you can read the Sioux City review as a review of White Rock too.  In short, White Rock is a balanced, workmanlike ginger beer that takes no chances but presents few flaws.

I feel like this double bottling is a bit of a savvy move.  It expands their audience considerably.  Instead of having to choose which market to focus on, craft soda or mixer, they can drop the product into two different bottles and reach both.

Plus, Sioux City isn’t a bad ginger beer yet it’s impossible to find in my area.  White Rock, however, is in grocery stores and liquor stores all over town, giving access to a drink I wouldn’t have otherwise.

So buy Sioux City or buy White Rock.  Either way you’re getting a quality product that’s a competent craft soda and a capable mixer.  The choice is up to you.

Final Decision: Third Tier – Enjoyable

Purchased locally at: HEB  |  Also available locally at: Spec’s

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