"Kiddie Homebrew"

A couple of times a year I mix up a batch of root beer for the kids, usually when we plan to have guests to help us celebrate a holiday weekend. This weekend we are having friends over for some holiday cheer and desserts, so this morning I made some "homebrew" root beer for the kiddies to enjoy while we shared our favorite cocktails, homebrew and wine with the adults.

This is a really simple recipe and quite tasty!

I use McCormick's Root Beer concentrate. I have tried a couple of others from the local homebrew shop, but the kids always prefer the McCormick. I force carbonate the rootbeer in a corny keg for instant gratification and to allow me to adjust the amount of foam. An alternative would be to replace the cold water with soda water, or put the rootbeer into a rubbermaid cooler with a few pounds of dry ice (great for Halloween parties). The traditional method would be to bottle condition with ale yeast allowing enough fermentation to occur to carbonate the root beer. This could be done in two liter bottles to minimize the danger of bottle bombs!

Ingredients for a 3 gallon batch:
2oz bottle McCormick's Root Beer Concentrate
1.5gal boiling water
3 cups Dark Brown Cane Sugar
3 cups white sugar
1.5 gal cold water
Dissolve the sugar in 1.5gal boiling water, remove the heat and add the full bottle of root beer extract.

If you're kegging (highly recommended), Sanitize your corny keg just as you were preparing it for beer. Pour the contents form the boil into the keg followed by 1.5gal of cold water, seal and pressurize with CO2 to about 35psi. I then refrigerated the keg shake it heavily to speed the absorption of CO2. Within 18-24hrs you will have tasty draft root beer on tap!

Cheers!

-D

Comments

[Cory]

DobroD-

Glad I found this post my kid loves rootbeer. I brew my own beer and thought I would like to keg it. I have "golden brown cane sugar" on hand and can go get the dark, have any ideas if this will alter the recipe that much? I've found that in a 5 gal batch of beer, I tune up the CO2 to 25psi for 48 hours without shaking and it carbonates fine. Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks

Cory