Mug Root Beer

   Well true to our word we really will review any soda if given to us for free by our fans.  Today’s review is Mug Root Beer, given to us by one Double R.  I really think that he meant for this review to be difficult.  Anyone can review an odd drink, pointing out what makes it unique… but a mainstream root beer that most everyone has tasted could be much more difficult.  Mug of course is one of the three big name root beer brands out there, the other two being Barq’s, and of course A&W.  I have a co-worker that refers to Mug as “the working man’s root beer”, or the “blue collar” root beer.  I really enjoy thinking of it that way, and the bulldog on the front of the can offering me a frosty glass of root beer seems to give off the feel of a “blue collar” kind of guy.  Speaking of the can art, it looks as if I’m picking up a frosty mug overflowing with suds.  Nice touch Pepsi… I mean Mug.  Enough with the chatter, let’s crack it open.

   I’m realizing now that I’ve never truly smelled Mug Root Beer… and upon doing so I realize that its root beer smell really isn’t that strong.  I kind of thought all the chemicals inside of it would have increased the aroma, but I’ve been wrong before… ONE TIME.  Time for some drinkin’.

   To be honest with you, and I always am, I haven’t had a Mug Root Beer in a while.  This tastes much more watery than I remember.  Mug doesn’t have the “bite” of Barq’s, or the creamy taste of A&W.  In fact it has a muted, less impressive version of the characteristics that make the other two root beers loved by so many.  A positive attribute of Mug how clean the taste is for a mainstream root beer.  There are definitely cleaner tasting root beers out there, but this one does pretty well compared to its A&W Rival.  As you might expect this is a very safe drink.  By safe I mean that you pretty much know what it’s going to taste like when you pick up a can for the first time.  It’s going to taste like boring root beer.  Now I recognize that I’ve probably become a root beer snob over the past two years, and I’m sure that’s affecting this review.  If you love Mug Root Beer and don’t understand why I’m not rating it higher, go out and try some Virgil’s, Boylan’s, or Bundaberg Root Beer and tell me they aren’t heads, tails, slugs, and snails better than Mug.  Until then I’m sticking with this…

~A

Faux Fact: Twist was the original mascot for Mug, but he asked for too much money