Article on how NYFRB is supporting 45 jobs:
http://www.news8000.com/news/not-your-fathers-root-beer-keeps-la-crosse-brewery-hoppin/35013260
Brian
From what I can tell, it’s the 10.7% stuff with an additional pitch of yeast. Something like champagne yeast can ferment up to 20% abv, so it can certainly be done that way, and it sounds like it is. Some specialty strains can go even higher. This yeast, for instance, goes up to 25%. It may need to be pitched at higher rates than normal yeast with a vigorous starter, but those levels are certainly achievable by fermentation alone.
I like NYF. I don’t like beer; I found early on that if I drink enough to get a real good buzz, I get real sick the next day. I hated the taste, way too bitter for me, and never learned to like it.
Which sucks; I really wish I could enjoy one. But it makes my lips curl. The one time I remember enjoying it was a long sailboat race on a super hot and not very windy day when we ran out of anything else. The super cold (in ice) lite American beer was refreshing, and 1 per hour for about 10 hours was perfect.
For beverages I used to have a big sweet tooth, liking 7up or sprite, but I switched to plain carbonated water (SodaStream) and now I prefer that.
Anyway, I find NYF very sweet, sweeter than I like, but not enough to put me off. I won’t be drinking more than 1 or 2 at a time, though. It’s a lot easier to drink 4 or 5 Mikes, which is my favorite.
I’d like to try others.
My son, who’s made beer, who chooses beer for the bar/restaurant he manages, says it’s horrible either as beer or rootbeer.
BTW the bartender who first served it to me said it’s beer in every respect, just spiced. Not a “malt beverage” like Mikes or other alcopop. Not that it matters.
I wonder whether I’d get ill if I drank a 6 in 2 hours. (I’m efficient, doesn’t take much to get a good buzz on.) Not that it matters. The few times a year when I get sloshed I’d just as soon use hard liquor or sake.
I don’t like beer either, so I liked the so-called malt beverages craze of the late 90s (starting with the evil genius that created Zima). In my area too NYF is all the talk and in short supply. I didn’t understand the sudden interest as I thought it was just another alco-pop (Jack Daniels made a root beer flavored one a few years ago). But then I too heard it wasn’t just another malt beverage, that it was real beer.
However, there seems to be some controversy floating around as to the accuracy of this claim.
http://www.joesixpack.net/2015/07/02/the-story-behind-not-your-fathers-root-beer/
I tried it, it tastes nothing whatsoever like beer, but like sweet, alcoholic root beer soda (i.e. just another alco-pop*!*). So I’m suspicious as well…
Coney Island but more for floats than as a drink by itself. Some of the assorted gin mills I visit have started stocking some ice cream just for that purpose.
I’ve had NYF root beer a couple of times. Tastes a lot like a spicy root beer. Doesn’t taste at all like beer. They could probably cut down on the sweetness a tad. Because of the sweetness, it doesn’t seem to do a good job of cutting thirst.
Curiously, the ingredients list ale and spices, but not sugar. So I’m assuming that the fermentation process is halted fairly early on to leave so much sugar in the beverage.
You could use something like lactose or artificial sweetener(which is sweet and doesn’t ferment) or when you’ve fermented out, you just kill the yeasts using whatever method you prefer (like sorbate or potassium metasulfite) and backsweeten it (that is, add additional sugar to get it to the sweetness level you like.) Then force carbonate.
I’m drinking some NYF right now! The local HEB has a bunch, but it’s not obvious that they have it the way it’s displayed (just some boxes next to the wine).
I am glad that it has national distribution now. I originally had some (the 10% version) on tap in Chicago back in 2013 when there was limited distribution and have been longing for it ever since.
I saw the Coney Island and picked some up. That shit is horrible. All I taste is licorice. I’d be happy to try something else but that stuff is garbage in a bottle.
A friend of mine insisted I have a rum and root beer one time, swore it was the greatest thing ever. I was dubious, but ok what the hell. I couldn’t hardly believe it. You can never go wrong with a good rum (or rye) and good root beer.
And if you can get a bottle of Riggwelter strong ale, and stick that sucker in the freezer till ice begins to form, and pour yourself a glass, it’s like a rum and coke without the sugar. On a hot day you can put away several of these without ever getting bored. This is such a perfect beer it may just be the killer beer, like the monty python killer joke, the beer you can’t stop drinking? It’s so good, they discontinued it here :mad:
I love root beer, and recently got a six pack of NYF. Fucking delicious. Tastes just like root beer to me.
I poured myself one once and never lived it down with my friends. Frankly, though, my friends were right. It wasn’t good.
WalMart carries it. Or if you have a Majestic Liquor (or really any good liquor retail can lay hold of this AWESOME creation) you will surely find the path you seek to travel. Good luck and God speed.
This is probably more of a homebrewing board question, but how would you brew an alcoholic root beer anyway?
I’m guessing that you’d want to start with a base beer with a lot of crystal malt and a fairly high gravity, and use a yeast not known for fermenting out pretty dry. Then you’d want to spice it with typical root beer herbs- wintergreen, vanilla, sarsparilla / sassafras, coriander, etc…
But would you hop it at all, or would it be more of a specialized gruit beer? Would you put the spices in at the boil, in the fermenter, or both? Which ones?
Don’t get me wrong; I suspect the commercial examples are probably a fairly regular beer that gets flavored, not something brewed as a specific root beer, but I’m curious how you’d go about doing it if you really wanted to.
Personally? I wouldn’t worry too much about the yeast. Your standard root beer will be about 5%, and any ale yeast will be fine with that. I wouldn’t hop it. I’d think crystal malt is probably a good choice. I’d boil the spices in with the wort, about 45 minutes. I’d ferment it out, taste it, backsweeten, and force carbonate. Or if I don’t care about it being sweet, I’d just bottle condition or sweeten it with lactose in the wort (following the sweetening amounts for something like a milk stout.)
I then would make my notes and adjust where needed for the second batch. 
Because of this thread, I bought a six pack of Coney Island.
I was surprised how much it did taste like regular root beer but with a little aftertaste like diet sodas. It is not something I could drink a lot of in one evening! One was good, the second one was good about halfway through but got to be too much by the end. In contrast, beer, my primary drug of choice, tastes as good after 3,…6,…9…?
I also get the feeling that more than one or two hard root beers would provide a major hangover. I find some beers are high on the hangover scale but my regular brands aren’t so bad.
Also, chasing 2 hard root beers with regular beer was horrible. It’s taken 2 (and counting) regular beers to cleanse my palate.
Funny this should resurface. I just cracked open a Not Your Father’s. I can’t drink more than one per night due to the sweetness, but I enjoy the one. They now seem to me more widely available and now it cans as well as bottles. I was told the moving to cans was to help meet their distribution issues.