Forbidden Root

Forbidden Root

Forbidden Root

Chicago

Forbidden Root is brewed with a generous addition of botanical ingredients including wintergreen, vanilla, cassia cinnamon, fennel, nutmeg, cardamom, black pepper, ginger, clove, star anise and more.

ABV: 5.5

ABW: 4.3

COLOR: 27

BITTERNESS: 7

ORIGINAL GRAVITY: 1064

AVAILABLE: IL

It smells like root beer, but better. There is something more, black licorice, nutmeg, ginger, a faint salty characteristic. After the first sip, vanilla and cooling mint appear. This is a botanical beer, and many ingredients clearly went into the brew. My brain searched to pinpoint flavors, and it became a fun game. Chocolate? Wood? Is that pepper? The mouthfeel is creamy, and it finishes delicately. A drink to make you think.
- John Holl

Not until I looked it up online did I understand this deep brown, intensely aromatic brew, which boasts the exact nose of a particularly attractive root beer. Absent the sweetness of a soda, however, the flavor is something quite a bit different, with dark spice notes of pepper, cinnamon and star anise accented by a baseline of wintergreen, all combining to deliver a forcefully savory character with a modicum of bitterness on the finish. Sitting somewhere between beer and root beer, I find myself wishing it would tilt more one way or the other.
- Stephen Beaumont

John Holl
John is the editor of All About Beer Magazine, the host of The Beer Briefing on iHeart Radio, and the author of three books, including The American Craft Beer Cookbook. Find him on Twitter @John_Holl.

Stephen Beaumont
Co-author of both The World Atlas of Beer and The Pocket Beer Guide (with Tim Webb), Stephen travels the world sampling beer, hosting dinners and tastings, and eating too much airport food.