Simple Root Beer– no refined sugar and GAPS Friendly

This simple root beer made with actual roots is sweetened with honey, then fermented. Bubbly and delicious, this easy fermented drink is easy full of probiotics– a refreshing treat you can feel good about!

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Root beer is simple to make! It takes time, yes. Most of that time is either simmering up the brew (45 minutes), cooling it down (another hour), and letting the fermentation happen (2-5 days, depending). Very little of the time is hands-on.

The ingredients make or break the root beer, health-wise. The store bought kinds are made with sugars and a range of other, sometimes more natural and usually not-so-natural ingredients. There is typically color added, and often preservatives and other items we might not love putting into our bodies. At least, not often.

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So what is in homemade root beer?

You guessed this– root beer is made with roots! And sometimes barks, spices, berries, etc. Also some sort of sugar, plus active cultures that ferment and make it bubbly. (Canned root beer is carbonated, and not naturally fermented or probiotic.)

These roots and such used in traditional root beer? They grow in the eastern United States, where root beer got its start. They are packed with health benefits, with one being controversial.

Many root beer recipes have a long list of roots and herbs, some of which aren’t common in modern kitchens. Unless you can forage some of these items, making root beer can get expensive! I have pared the ingredient list down so you don’t need to buy much especially for this project.

Also, traditional root beer is fermented. Home fermentation is making a comeback, but it is unfamiliar to many of us. Thankfully, it is pretty easy to do. Here are some reasons to add ferments to your life:

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

The Controversial Part

A traditional way to make root beer relies on sassafras. Popularly used for tea, root beer, medicinal purposes, and more, sassafras got cancelled, so to speak, when a study showed it can cause cancer. Root beer recipes changed, using sarsaparilla or artificial flavorings instead.

Sassafras contains safrole, a polyphenol also found in cinnamon. In quantity, it was shown to cause cancer in lab animals. This safrole controversy is fairly recent; you should 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.)

In short, I don’t worry about a small amount of sassafras now and then in root beer. It tastes good, offers health benefits, and isn’t present in the massive quantities that got the rats sick. I also use cinnamon quite a lot and don’t worry about that, either. Skip it if you want– sassafras can be pricey unless you forage it.

The ingredients and their benefits:

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

Where to get the unusual ingredients

If you skip the sassafras (or forage it locally), you may not need to buy very much.

I recommend fresh ginger; I typically have it in the house at all times, and you can get it at the store, along with ground or whole cloves. If you use dried ginger, try a teaspoon.

I buy anise stars very inexpensively at my local Sprouts market. You can buy them in little jars in the spice section of most grocery stores, but they are much more affordable in the bulk spices section at Sprouts. You could order something like this one.

I had to order the sarsaparilla. I got this one from Amazon last year. It was a splurge– but it will last several years at the rate I am using it. We don’t make root beer often.

Where do you get the whey? Is there anything else I could use?

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

You may have noticed a bit of yellowish liquid on top of plain yogurt before; that is whey. You can pour it into a jar and save it up. It is liquid gold for your health!

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

Don’t have whey? Or don’t want to use dairy products? You can make a ginger bug in advance of root beer making. You don’t need any dairy for that. Alternatively, do a second ferment of water kefir using this root beer syrup (but not on GAPS).

Bottles

You can use anything that has a tight-fitting lid. I have made root beer in empty juice bottles. It works. Stick with glass bottles.

The root beer will get fizzier in swing top bottles like these. I found mine at local thrift stores. I hear you can get them affordably from IKEA as well. The tops keep the bubbles in very well.

In fact, they are so effective that you really need to open the bottles a couple of times a day until you move them into the refrigerator. If you manage to have root beer in the refrigerator for more than a few days, open them now and then to make sure they don’t explode.

I once went a whole day without opening my bottles that were close to done– one exploded in the middle of the night, shocking my husband and me awake and leading to a massive kitchen cleanup in the wee hours. I don’t recommend that.

How to Make a Simple Root Beer

This is the process:

• make a strong tea
• sweeten it
• mix it with a little whey and let it ferment

Gather all the goodies and simmer them gently for quite awhile. I usually let them go about 45 minutes. Cool them a bit, then stir in the honey.

To each bottle, add about 1/4 cup whey. For bigger bottles, you could use a little more.

Fill the bottle the rest of the way with your tea-like liquid. Leave about an inch of space at the top.

Cap the bottles and let them rest at room temperature for a few days. Open and close them twice a day to prevent explosions and to check on the level of fermentation. When they are as bubbly as you like them to be, put them in the refrigerator.

Questions about Simple Root Beer

How GAPS friendly is this recipe?

The massive problem with root beer is the sugar. Honey is allowed on the GAPS diet, removing that obstacle. That said, I wouldn’t suggest that having lots of honey is all that GAPS friendly! It is still a sugar, it can feed pathogens, and some people don’t do well with it. Some of the sugar is consumed by fermentation, but certainly not all!

The other ingredients are less troublesome. Good, active whey from home-cultured dairy is very GAPS friendly, as are the ginger and cloves. Anise in whole form (like the anise stars in this recipe) is allowed on full GAPS and has some gut health benefits.

Sarsaparilla is harder to nail down, and of course much less common in our diets. As best I can tell, it is OK on full GAPS in its natural form, like being made into tea as in this recipe. It has medicinal uses, but usually comes with loads of sugar and other additives or has been compromised in other ways, so there is reason for caution.

Won’t using honey interfere with fermentation?

You may have read that ferments won’t work with honey because the antibacterial properties of honey interfere with the process and kill the beneficial microbes. It is true that raw honey has antimicrobial properties. It is an old and effective remedy for this reason, so the question makes sense.

Happily, honey is great for fermenting! I used it in jun kombucha (green tea and honey) for a few years, and I keep some garlic and honey fermenting at all times as a home remedy. Never fear, your root beer will happily ferment with honey. For more on fermenting with honey, look into these ideas.

Why is the root beer light in color?

Commercial root beer is dark brown. This one isn’t. It will be brown from the brown roots, but not nearly as dark as we are used to. Using more of the roots and spices and steeping longer may make it a little darker, but not that same deep brown.

They use caramel color and other ingredients we really don’t want or need to achieve that rich color! No, thank you.

Also, some homemade root beers are darker because of molasses. I keep the molasses and sugar low in my other root beer recipes, so those are also pale. However, molasses adds flavor, and it is nice to use if you can. (Not GAPS friendly at all!) Using lots of molasses will turn your root beer darker.

Can I use a sugar substitute?

No, you need real sugar in some form to get the fermenting to happen. You can reduce the honey and the root beer will ferment and turn bubbly and probiotic. However, you need some to feed those friendly microbes!

You also need some sweetness; the root beer tea by itself smells like root beer and tastes like… not much. Maybe like sticks, if you were to taste sticks.

Maybe you could use less honey, ferment, then add some sort of liquid sugar substitute when you serve it. I don’t know.

What are those little floaty things in my root beer? Did it go bad?

One problem, if it is a problem, with switching to “real food” is that is is, well, real. There are imperfections and odd things that can seem unappealing or even alarming. This is not like food that is packaged for sale. Two main things can and do happen with cultured root beer.

You may get white stuff at the top of the bottle. It can even form a sort of plug at the top, which will break apart if you turn the bottle upside down a few times. (Don’t open it just after doing this, as it may foam all over the place.)

If you strain your whey finely, this is less likely to happen. Whey often has little bits in it, and they float. They don’t hurt anything, but they aren’t super appealing. You are less likely to have this happen with a ginger bug or with very clear whey.

The other thing that will happen is that you will get sediment at the bottom of the bottles. Even if you use whole cloves, ginger, etc., you will get a little fine debris from the roots and such after straining. This is just fine and won’t do you any harm. If it annoys you, gently turn the bottle upside down so they mix back in. The root beer won’t be gritty.

You could strain the root beer tea through a fine cloth, like a flour sack towel or muslin, before fermenting. That might at least reduce the sediment. I haven’t tried it, though. It doesn’t seem worth the effort.

What else could I add to the root beer?

Assuming you don’t want to mess with the type of sugar, there are still some lovely and even beneficial additions you could make. I kept this recipe simple in ingredients, but there are many other classic additions to traditional root beers.

• licorice–used to treat ulcers, digestive complaints, menstrual and menopause symptoms, and viruses
• allspice— anti-inflammatory, supports dental, immune, heart, and digestive health
• wintergreen— relieves pain and fever, helps digestive and respiratory issues, anti-inflammatory
• birch bark— used to relieve pain, promote kidney health, strengthen immune system, natural antihistamine, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidants, relieves anxiety
• dandelion root— rich in phytochemicals, vitamins, and minerals, supports metabolic health, detoxification, and hormone balance, improves immune function and skin, lowers cancer risk
• vanilla— for extra flavor
• burdock— another traditional root beer ingredient with many medicinal benefits including detoxification, hormone and blood sugar balance, antioxidants, and more.

Finally, you can make a root beer float! We haven’t done it with this recipe yet, but it works with my other two root beer recipes. I make this ice cream; it is also GAPS compliant if you make it with kefir or yogurt and cultured cream.

old fashioned root beer

root beer flavored water kefir