Now you can make your own root beer at home that really tastes like the handcrafted root beer that some of the microbreweries are making. We evaluated all of the "soda pop" root beer flavors and none were particularly exciting. So we decided to have some made especially for HopTech. HopTech's Root Beer Flavors (Original and #2) are made from 100% natural ingredients and taste great. Root Beer #3 uses both natural and artifical flavors. A 4 oz bottle makes either 2.5 or 5 gallons (depending on the flavor) - you only need to add sugar (or other sweetener), yeast and water.
The big problem with home made root beer is how to carbonate it. If you have a kegging system, you are home free. Just mix the flavoring, sugar and water and put it in the keg. Chill the keg down to 35oF and force carbonate by rocking/shaking the keg for a few minutes. You can also use "The Carbonater" (see the kegging section) and make your root beer in 2 liter pop bottles and force carbonate and serve directly from them. But what if you don't have a kegging system? (Hint: The ability to make great homemade root beer is sometimes a good way to help justify the expense of a kegging system to the rest of the family!) We now have a solution! We've finally found an affordable "soda syphon". A soda syphon is a container that is used to force carbonate a liquid using a disposable CO2 cartridge and also act as the dispenser for the carbonated liquid. It operates like the seltzer bottles of yore that the Three Stooges used to squirt each other with. See below for more info. You can also bottle your root beer. Most root beer instructions tell you to add Champagne yeast, bottle, wait a day, then chill the bottles to prevent over-carbonation and bottle grenades. The problem is Champagne yeast likes to work cold! So we recommend ale yeast since the cold will generally stop it from working. Be aware that you'll need to chill all the bottles. This takes a lot of fridge space, but unlike beer, there's no need to make the whole batch at once.
Our root beer flavors come with complete instructions and they're very easy to make. If you already have homebrewing equipment, you have everything you need. If you don't, you'll need a bottling bucket, bottle filler and a capper. A lot of people like to make the root beer in 2 liter soda bottles, eliminating the need for the capper and they're safer than glass. Or for the ulimate in convenience, check out our new Root Beer Kits that include flavoring and a soda syphon.
We now have three flavors available. Our original makes a very strong, spicy "microbrew" style root beer, Root Beer Flavor #2 tastes very similar to the old Hires or Dads style root beer. Our newest flavor Root Beer #3 tastes just like Thomas Kemper. The original and #3 make 5 gallons per bottle, #2 makes 2.5 gallons per bottle.