Recently, while enjoying morning coffee with a few others at a table on the sidewalk outside of the bakery on McGraw, the conversation turned to soft drinks for some unknown reason. You know, soda pop.
"We had just walked over the crosswalk atop the Chittenden locks and crossed into Ballard," my friend Julie told me, "and we stopped at the Mermaid Espresso stand there next to the Lockspot Tavern, to get a soda."
"Well, we met this guy who runs the stand and he went into this long discourse on root beer," she continued, "he even makes some that he bottles himself. You should talk to him."
Had I been singled out, like Dennis the Menace, to be a root beer aficionado?
That afternoon, I talked the Lady Marjorie into an afternoon root beer break and we drove over the Ballard Bridge to the north side of the locks and we treated ourselves, on the hot day it was, to a five-dollar root-beer float.
The float was wonderful, tasty and creamy, but the guy who is the root beer "expert" wasn't there and wouldn't be back until early the next week.
Came the next week and I drove back over the Ballard Bridge again. He still wasn't there, but the guy running the stand, Steve, got him on the phone and a meeting was arranged. Steve scribbled the directions on the back of a used envelope and sent me on my way.
He also gave me some verbal directions that began with, "Turn at the statue of Lenin," and ended with, "if you get lost, ask some friendly hippie on the street and they'll guide you right there."
We were headed for Fremont.
After cruising up and down the back alleys of Fremont for a while, I managed to find the basement laboratory I was searching for.
I also met Chris Webb. He's 61 years old, a red head with glasses, thin, about six feet tall and was dressed in a strap undershirt and a pair of khaki shorts with sandals, all covered with a white lab coat. The mad scientist of root beer.
Webb was waiting for me and he was in the midst of brewing up a mixture of cinnamon and star anise that would be added to another mixture of various herbs and water that would then be carbonated and form his latest batch of root beer.
Webb had attended U of W were he studied oceanography and then moved to Seattle Community College were his study field changed to computer science.
In 1995 Webb began growing various edible and medicinal herbs on a farm he shared with a friend. Then the next year, he opened in Fremont the Herbal Tonic Bar, which featured herbal elixirs, acupuncture, Chinese medicine and massage therapy.
The Tonic Bar closed in 2001, but Webb had already begun making various soda pops in 2000 and marketing them up and down the West Coast under the Real Soda label. It was real soda with real taste in a real glass bottle. He figures the boutique label has produced around 100 different flavors.
Root beer, though, is Webb's main interest.
"The quintessential test of a formulator and a bottler," Webb says "is root beer, because of its complexity."
There are around 300 brands of root beer currently being commercially bottled in the United States, from the big brands such as Hires, Dad's, Barq's and A&W to all of the many smaller bottlers, Webb said.
"My favorite," Webb told me, "is Sparky's Root Beer by Kevin and Carol Knox from down in Monterey, California. It's the 'Porter of Root Beers'."
Webb opines that root beer was originally developed by the Chinese as a spring tonic made up of dried herbs, dried roots and dried berries, things they would have around before the growing season would start each year.
Root beer flavor may contain a variety of flavors, coming from the wide range of ingredients. Bark from the roots of the sassafras tree was the typical flavor in root beer historically, and is the primary flavor most people associate with the beverage.
The name root beer is almost unknown outside of the United States and Canada. Most other countries have their own indigenous versions of root-based beverages but with different names and branding.
Europeans don't like root beer, Webb feels, because when they go to a dentist, the flavor of mouthwash they use is root-beer flavored. Although, when we had a houseful of Brits visit us a while back, it didn't seem like they could get enough of the beverage.
Webb is hard at work right now preparing quantities of his root beer to be bottled and sold at the Mermaid Espresso Stand, the Fremont Coffee Company, and the upcoming Fremont Fair under the name of Root Beer from the Fremont Beverage Company.
I advise you to give it a taste run if you like root beer, it's quite tasty. I think Dennis the Menace would probably approve, too.[[In-content Ad]]
