I am new to brewing and just brewed my first batch this past week. The wife was asking if I could brew some root beer for her and the kids. I was looking on the site and didn’t see a lot about brewing root beer besides alcohol stuff. any suggestions
Jimmy
If you look on homebrewtalk, there’s a recipe for ginger ale that you should be able to find pretty easily. It uses champagne yeast to carbonate, but then you have to put it in the fridge or pasteurize to stop fermentation. I bet you could modify it to use root beer extract. The ginger ale is great, the kids love it!
Thanks for the info. I will give it a try.
I checked.out the site and I have to say there are a ton of great soda recipes there. Thanks again for the info 
Good luck! I should have thought of it last night, but I’m sure there’s a root beer recipe there.
If you just want to make some really good root beer that is easy try this http://www.northernbrewer.com/gnome-draft-style-root-beer Not much different than doing and all extract beer only easier. I made it a long time ago and have to say it was great. First sip and you will want to got to the store for vanilla ice cream.
I did mine in a keg and force carbonated it making even more simple. Be aware that equipment root beer comes in contact with can pick up that flavor and it is difficult to remove it. Especially from plastic or O rings.
Just be forewarned, you’ll have to buy additional plastic brewing equipment as you’ll never get the side flavor/aroma out.
Can’t believe no one beat me to it. When the wife asks for root beer is guy code for kegging system upgrade… “Well, dear, I will need a few things in order brew rootbeer”. Be sure to throw a carbonator cap in the purchase for the root beer…
I went a little gung ho on REAL root beer for a awhile… Even going on nature walks IDing tree leaves for sassafras… I used info in this book: Book Long story short, while it was fun, I think extract kegging wins. In fact, I think Barq’s is pretty dang hard to beat… Now, if you want to try and best Barq’s, this will get you started: Extract.
I think the best way for the homebrewer to do root beer or any “pop” as we say in OH, is like an old soda fountain. Have a keg of chilled soda, add shot of simple syrup and extract, and then soda. You can also buy ready mix/sweet. This way you can do other stuff like egg cremes, lime rickeys, REAL ginger ale, and not deal with other things mentioned.
We brew root beer for our kids all the time! Super easy and it gives them a ready supply on tap for floats and what not.
We found a basic recipe thats sasparilla root, burdock, yellowdock, mollasses, sugar and a vanilla bean. Start to keg time is about 30 minutes and then we force carbonate it because my kids are impatient. Our recipe does call for an addition of hops, which we don’t do because it toys with the taste too much and the kids don’t like it.
I will ditto what was mentioned above about plastic- we have a tap in our keezer dedicated to our root beer. Also, remember to label the tap! Don’t want the kids (or spouse) thinking they’re getting root beer and draw off a pint of your good stout.
Very awesome information everyone thanks very much my wife and kids thank you as well. Here’s to a great summer of brewing 
