Old Fashioned Root Beer

Did you know that root beer is a traditional and even healthful drink? The plants used to flavor traditional root beer have many benefits, and we know fermented foods are good for us. Ditch the sugary modern version laden with questionable ingredients, and keep traditional benefits and the frosty mug!

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Frosty root beer is a wonderful thing! It is a treat all on its own, with popcorn or pizza, or poured over vanilla ice cream for a root beer float!

Sadly, almost all the store bought root beers are full of weird ingredients– corn syrup, caramel color, unpronounceable things we can’t easily identify… Even the somewhat better versions of root beer have a LOT of sugar. Not the end of the world every now and then, especially if you are in excellent health.

However, what if you aren’t in the best of health and trying to get better? Or what if you really want to keep your excellent health and avoid the sugar? Do you want to have root beer fairly often and feel good about it?

There is another way to go!

Actually, it is fairly simple to make root beer at home in a more traditional way. If you keep the ingredients minimal, or if you can forage for some of them nearby, it can be inexpensive.

Best yet, It tastes good and REAL, and old fashioned root beer has a number of health benefits. Yes, root beer can be good for us!

This isn’t a GAPS recipe because of the sugar and molasses. (If you aren’t sure what GAPS is, it is a healing protocol I wrote about here.) You could make it more GAPS friendly by replacing the sugar and molasses with honey, but it would change the flavor.

For those not on the GAPS diet, you will not be consuming as much sugar as you put in the root beer, because much of it will be consumed during the fermentation process. How much? It depends on how much sugar and whey you put in, how lively your whey is, what the temperature is like while the root beer is fermenting, how long you let the fermentation go on… You will end up consuming some sugar.

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What is so good about old fashioned root beer?

It comes down to two main elements– the fermentation process and the herbs, spices, and bark.

This recipe for old fashioned root beer relies on whey to get the fermentation going. Whey has a number of health benefits, including protein, nutrients, anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory properties, and more. Of course, we use only a little whey, so we only get a little of the benefits, except for the probiotics, which will multiply because we will feed them sugar.

If you can’t use whey because of milk allergy, like I couldn’t for many years, either make a ginger bug version or try my root beer water kefir recipe.

Fermentation

Modern root beers are carbonated; old fashioned root beer gets its bubbles from fermentation. The whey is packed with probiotics that will multiply like crazy when they are mixed in with the sugar and molasses. Keeping the mixture in a sealed bottle will cause them to become bubbly.

In fact, it is a good idea to open the lid once or twice a day so the pressure doesn’t build up too much. We had a bottle explode not long ago, and that is just not good. Glass and sticky liquid all over the place, plus you lose the contents. Of course, this happened in the middle of the night.

Reasons to consume fermented foods and drinks are many, including:

• improved digestion
• immune system support and regulation
• blood sugar balance
• reduce inflammation
• helps promote a healthy gut microbiome, which improves many aspects of health

Herbs, barks, and spices

The herbs traditionally used in old fashioned root beer recipes are as nourishing as they are tasty! In fact, some of them were used in beverages and medicines in Appalachia well before American colonists learned their uses from people already using them. Root beer was originally quite American!

Now, the modern versions don’t always use the original plants. In fact, the “original” herbs and barks are hard to narrow down, as different old recipes used different combinations of herbs and barks, sometimes more than a dozen of them. I have kept my recipe very minimal, to keep the cost and hassle down. Most of the spices you probably have in your kitchen already!

The most essential bark in the old recipes is sarsaparilla. Sassafrass was also typical until it went from health food to suspect because of its safrole content. (The safrole controversy is fairly recent; you can decide for yourself whether to include it. Here is a brief explanation that pretty well sums it up. Scroll down to find the safrole part.) You can leave it out and still have a wonderful tasting root beer. I like to include it.

In addition, birch bark was common, as were wintergreen, dandelion, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, anise, licorice, allspice, burdock, and quite a few others. You can include any of these and feel quite traditional. Or you can keep it simpler.

Benefits of the ingredients in this recipe:

• sarsaparilla— used to treat skin problems, cancer, and arthritis, good for the liver, hormone balance, and coughs, saponins help with infections, synergistic with other herbs and nutrients (helps us absorb and benefit from them better)
• sassafrass— pain relieving, anti-inflammatory, immune boosting, energizing, antiseptic, promotes wound healing, fights cancer, helps digestive troubles,improves blood sugar
• anise— antioxidants and an array of nutrients, used to treat skin problems, infections, respiratory system, digestion, hormone imbalance, and improve sleep and circulation
• ginger— anti-inflammatory and used to treat nausea, digestion, arthritis, viruses, and may improve circulation, heart health, asthma, and blood sugar
• cloves— pain relieving, fights infections, promotes healthy blood sugar and good digestion
• allspice— anti-inflammatory, supports dental, immune, heart, and digestive health

Where do you get the whey?

No, whey powder won’t work! It has had a lot of processing done to it, and most of the benefits, including the necessary probiotics, are gone. We want fresh whey from live dairy products, which you can collect from dairy products.

Cheese making produces whey. If you make cheese, you are set.

You may have noticed a bit of yellowish liquid on top of plain yogurt before; that is also whey. You can pour it into a jar and save it up.

I usually get my whey from yogurt I strain for the purpose of having a thicker yogurt. Alternatively, I sometimes strain some kefir to make “kefir cheese”, which is very much like cream cheese. That produces lots of lovely whey!

How to Make Old Fashioned Root Beer

Collect all your barks, herbs, and spices.

Simmer gently in a pan with about a quart of filtered water for 30-45 minutes. Stir in the sugar and molasses to dissolve. Add vanilla.

Then cool and strain the mixture. Pour the whey into the bottle you are using, then fill with the root beer liquid, leaving an inch or two of headspace at the top.

Leave at room temperature for 1-4 days, being sure to open the bottle once or twice a day to release the pressure. This is more important with each passing day. You don’t want the bottle to explode!

After a few days (I usually like 3 days, but maybe less in midsummer), put the bottle in the refrigerator. If you are worried it has fermented enough that the root beer might bubble out the top and go all over the place if you open it, refrigerate it well and it will settle down enough to open and pour.

This happened when I was photographing my root beer water kefir recipe:

Make Old Fashioned Root Beer Your Way!

• Increase the sugar if you want it sweeter. This is not a very sweet root beer. If you are used to the store kind of root beer and just starting to reduce sugar, you might find it not sweet enough. Be aware, though, that if you increase the sugar, the fermentation will be faster and livelier! Burp that bottle often and get it in the refrigerator once it is bubbly!
• You could leave out almost anything in this recipe, except for the sarsaparilla. It is essential. You could add many other traditional ingredients, such as birch bark, wintergreen, dandelion, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, anise, licorice, allspice, or burdock.

You can see how with a few mostly common ingredients and a little bit of effort, you can make an old fashioned root beer you can feel good about serving. Let me know what you add to your brew!

Make some vanilla ice cream if you feel like springing for root beer floats!