alanw

I've exhausted all the options I can think of. Surely someone must at least import it, even if it isn't made here.

Anyone have a source?

FlyingOnceMore

In the UK, yes.

It's carried, occasionally in the big supermarkets, or by speciality stores.

If you know anyone heading your way, either in their car, or with spare luggage weight, they can have it delivered in bulk from -

American Soda

CyberCandy

alanw

Thank You!

Edited to add: both of those sites are better than porn for someone who's been away a long time.

LapLap

In the UK Asda and Sainsbury's apparantly sell Carter's Root Beer. Waitrose sells an Australian brand - Bundaberg's.

Apparantly the A&W restaurant chain shares restaurant space with KFC in Derby, Clayton and Glasgow (presumably in the same way KFC shares space with Taco Bell in Ontario) and they have the A&W root beer on tap.

I had a Saturday job at MacDonalds long, long, long ago and remember pouring myself a cola from the back of the dispenser (which wasn't labelled). It tasted like Dentist's mouthwash. I went straight to a staff member to report that perhaps the cleaning fluid hadn't flushed through properly and that's when I found out what root beer tasted like. First and last time I ever tried it.

In the early 90s I used to hang out with friends from the North of England who were into Sarsaparilla in a big way. All the people from the UK I've ever met who liked Root beer or Sarsperella (seems to be no ending of spelling combinations for this) were from 'up North'.

jason8612

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry 8800: Opera/9.50 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.0.10031/286; U; en))

Have not seen root beer in poland, but we got the other stuff....beer

ShopAround

I have an American expat friend that lives in Rome and every time I make plans to see her (I'm in Italy frequently), she asks me to bring root beer. Of all the things she misses, that's what she asks me to bring her!

Jazzop

I have never met a Continental who didn't cringe at the taste of root beer or Dr. Pepper. I can't figure it out.

sniles

Have bought it before in The Netherlands at import stores. All US embassy shops have it in stock but you may have some trouble accessing these. Also, i'm sure the shops around the US army bases in Germany will sell RB.

alanw

Evidently, root beer has a flavor very close to some kind of medicine they give to children, at least here in Spain. Dr. Pepper, on the other hand, is always a big hit when I bring some back.

dimramon

I have yet to find root beer in Belgium. Like other posters have pointed out, there is an alternative called beer and some of the pubs here carry over 300 varieties

Stockycub1973

I was shopping in one of the Chinese supermarkets on Gerrard Street in Chinatwon. They had A & W Root bear in the chiller cabinet

Skyman65

Ding! Ding! Ding!

I hear the same thing from my Chinese friends/family. "Tastes like medicine"

Interestingly, in Taiwan they make one of my favoirte sodas called Hey Song Sasparilla. It is remotely similar to Root Beer, just not as syrupy sweet. My wife (Taiwanese) says that when she was young, her mom would have her drink [warm] Sasparilla when she was sick. I can't remember what it was supposed to cure, but they use it as some kind of medicine.

FlyingOnceMore

As LapLap mentioned, I and most adults I know will tell you it tastes exactly like the pink liquid the dentist gave you to wash your mouth out at the dentist as a kid. Believe me, it does.

whiteknuckles

This is an interesting question. On my first visit to England in 1982, I had a sudden desire for a root beer one day. When I asked for it in a grocery store, I was told they had never heard of it. I thought that perhaps what we in the U.S. know as root beer had a different name in England, but of course there was really no way for me to describe the taste. Years later, I worked with a woman who was dating a man from the UK and they stopped by the office together one day. I bought a can of root beer out of a vending machine and asked the man if he would taste it and tell me what the name of it is in England. He would not drink it, but he smelled it and said it smelled like "Bad tea".
I have been to England and Europe many times since then and I really just gave up on my quest to find out whether or not root beer exists in Europe. I had almost forgotten about all this until I saw this thread.

BTW: I also gave up on trying to get a lot of ice anywhere in Europe a long, long time ago.

LapLap

Even if that person had tried it it's more likely he would have said dentist's mouthwash than rootbeer, especially if he was from Southern England.

It's very easy to stump British people when it comes to food. There was a TV program on recently where some affluent minor celebrities had to cook for each other, one of them encountered asparagus for the first time, he had no idea what it was. Unfortunately, this is normal, I recently had inform a supermarket cashier that the lumpy things I needed priced were turnips. On a previous visit another cashier was bemused by an aubergine/eggplant. And there are plenty of people who've eaten pretzels who wouldn't recognise the name.

A significant segment of the population are resolutely resistant to unfamiliar tastes and foods, it's a proud tradition that the Puritan founding fathers took with them to North America

But there are Brits who are fond of and familiar with Sarsaparilla (admittedly a minority) who may not be aware of its similarity with root beer, so it would be like my asking an American about an aubergine or courgette rather than an eggplant or zucchini. A taste for Sarsparilla is a regional, even generational thing (Yorkshire and the North East i.e. Newcastle) so best not expect that all Britons would be familiar with the taste, just as I wouldn't expect someone from Iowa to necessarily know a Pasilla from a Guajillo chilli.

---
In Europe it's worth looking up alternatives such as Watson's Sarsae drink
http://www.fareastliving.co.uk/sess/...iew.shopscript
in East Asian stores. A taste for Root Beer and Sarsaparilla are usually linked, which explains why Stockycub1973 saw it in Gerard Street.
(I also saw root beer near the elusive cream sodas - a favourite of my Father's in Oriental City in Colindale, North London recently. However, this store will be closing next month)