Root Beer Recipes

You Will Enjoy Experimenting With Old-Time Root Beer Recipes

These root beer recipes were among the first carbonated soft drink recipes published. The early settlers made a "small beer" that they fermented using yeast and molasses and flavored with whatever edible herbs, barks, and roots they could find locally; these brews evolved into the familiar soft drinks now known as root beer, ginger beer and sarsaparilla. The rich, sparkling flavors of these refreshing non-alcoholic beers are still popular today.

Good homemade root beer is foamy in the glass and has a very pleasant and truly unique flavor -- fresh, yeasty, sparkling, and with just the slightest hint of alcohol. It tastes great! Using the old-fashioned root beer recipes, you will get to experience the wholesome and delicious soft drink your great-great-grandparents once enjoyed as children. And once you taste it, you will love it.

For 10 gallons beer, take 3 pounds common burdock root, or 1 ounce essence of sassafras; 1/2 pound good hops; 1 pint corn, roasted brown. Boil the whole in 6 gallons pure water until the strength of the materials is obtained; strain while hot into a keg, adding enough cold water to make 10 gallons. When nearly cold, add clean molasses or syrup until palatable -- not sickishly sweet. Add also as much fresh yeast as will raise a batch of 8 loaves of bread. Place the keg in a cellar or other cool place, and in 48 hours, you will have a keg of first-rate, sparkling root beer.

For each gallon of water take hops, burdock, yellow dock, sarsaparilla, dandelion, and spikenard root (all bruised), of each 1/2 ounce; boil 20 minutes; strain while hot; add 8 or 10 drops of oil of spruce and sassafras mixed in equal proportions. When cool enough put in 2 tablespoonfuls of yeast; molasses, 3/8 pint or white sugar, 1/2 pound gives the right sweetness.

1 cake compressed yeast; 5 pounds sugar; 2 ounces sassafras root bark [Note: it is not recommended that the sassafras root itself be eaten in any form]; 1 ounce hops or gingerroot; 2 ounces juniper berries; 4 gallons water; 1 ounce dandelion root; 2 ounces wintergreen. Wash roots well in cold water. Add juniper berries (crushed) and hops. Pour 8 quarts boiling water over root mixture and boil slowly 20 minutes. Strain through flannel bag. Add sugar and remaining 8 quarts water. Allow to stand until lukewarm.

Dissolve yeast in a little cool water. Add to root liquid. Stir well. Let settle and then strain again and bottle. Cork tightly. Keep in a warm room 5 to 6 hours, and then store in a cool place. Put on ice as required for use.