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Root beer is a fermented beverage made from a combination of vanilla, cherry tree bark, licorice root, sarsaparilla root, artificial sassafras root bark flavoring (the pure form is mildly carcinogenic), nutmeg, anise, and molasses among other ingredients. Many local brands of root beer exist, and homemade root beer is made from concentrate or (rarely) from actual roots. Like alcoholic beer, root beer has a thick and foamy head when poured. Root beer is a predominantly North American beverage, constituting about 3% of the American soft drink market.
Ingredients Ingredients may include allspice, birch bark, coriander, juniper, ginger, wintergreen, hops, burdock root, dandelion root, spikenard, pipsissewa, guaiacum, yellow dock, honey, clover, cinnamon, prickly ash bark, quillaia, and yucca. Due to the wide variety of ingredients possible the flavor of root beer is widely variable between brands. This is especially true of local brands. Root beer is very similar in taste to sarsaparilla, which may also be called root beer. In Britain, there are several different root beers, which rose to prominence with the temperance movement in the 20th century. These include sarsaparilla, dandelion and burdock, and ginger beer. They were strongly flavored drinks that people could use as an alternative to alcoholic beverages, and there tended to be a strong local preference for one of these. Well into the 1960s, these outsold cola drinks. Traditional use Root beer was a traditional beverage and herbal medicine. The beverage was often alcoholic, usually around 2%. As a medicine it was used for treating cough and mouth sores. Commercially prepared root beer was developed by Charles Elmer Hires on May 16, 1866. He presented root tea powder at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial exhibition. In 1893 he began selling bottled carbonated root beer. There was an upsurgence in the popularity of root beer in the United States during the period of prohibition in the early 20th Century as local breweries resorted to brewing root beer since alcoholic beverages were outlawed. Home-made root beer is made using flavoring (either a concentrate, or actual roots and spices) to which is added sugar, water, and yeast. It is allowed to ferment under pressure to retain the carbonation and limit the alcohol produced by the yeast to low levels. Sassafras controversy The FDA banned sassafras root in the U.S. in 1960 because it contains safrole, a potential carcinogen. The young shoots, bark, and leaves do not contain this toxin, so commercial extracts are often made from these. Also, artificial flavoring agents have been developed which are used in some commercial root beers. Other varieties use sassafras root extract from which the safrole has been removed. The sassafras tree grows wild in most of the Eastern United States, and a person could harvest the wild plants; however, removing safrole from sassafras root extract, and verifying its safety for use, is a task that is beyond the ability and equipment of most homebrewers. Nonetheless, one may still risk getting cancer even if safrole is removed. It is suspected that there are more carcinogenic elements present in sassafras extract than just safrole.* Root beer as a flavor Root beer is also used as a flavoring for candy, cough drops, popcorn, root beer floats, jelly beans, cakes, ice pops, milk, Italian ice, barbecue sauce, and breads. Root beer in culture and entertainment Root beer is occasionally used by the media when a beer-like beverage is portrayed which must be non-alcoholic for family audiences. An example is Tapper, a popular arcade video game from Bally Midway in 1983. The player is a bartender who must pour and serve beer to customers in several different bars. When this caused some controversy, a nearly-identical variant of the game was released the following year called Root Beer Tapper, with all the beer now being root beer instead. Another instance was in an episode of Dragonball Z, a sign on a bar read 'Beer,' but for American TV audiences, Funimation added the word 'Root' between the edge of the sign and the 'B' in 'beer.' British singer Jimmy Somerville released a short album called Root Beer in 2000, and its cover art featured a cartoon version of Somerville riding a root beer barrel like a rodeo bronco. The Punk-Band Green Day has a song on their 1994 album Dookie, called "Sassafras Roots", although it has nothing to do with root beer. In the Monkey Island series of computer games, root beer is a weapon against ghosts. In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Starfleet Officers often order root beer at Quark's. Quark, the owner of the establishment, has stated that he loathes root beer because it is "sweet, bubbly and cloying." In Charles Schulz's comic strip Peanuts, root beer is the beverage commonly drunk by beagle Snoopy. In the 1998 film The Big Lebowski, the narrator orders a sarsaparilla while talking to the Dude. In Kidney Troubles, an episode aired during the tenth season of The Simpsons, Homer visits a saloon and orders a Whiskey and the bartender tells him that they only serve sarsaparilla. In addition, Grandpa Simpson claims that they don't sell sarsaparilla in Springfield because it "angries up the blood." Billy Joel's 1974 album Streetlife Serenade contains an instrumental song called "Root Beer Rag" in the style of ragtime music. Later, Root Beer Rag was also adopted as the name of the Billy Joel newsletter through 1989. Root Beer is also the preferred beverage of the Biker Mice From Mars. Commercial brands Traditional root beer brands include: The Samuel Adams brewery also produces an alcoholic variety in its Brewer/Patriot sampler pack. It is flavored with herbs, spices, honey, and molasses. See also | ||||||||
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