There is a lightness and freshness to it, an almost wintergreen or teaberry herbiness that leaves it tasting clean and crisp. Birch beer is significantly more complex and tastier than root beer. The Wikipedia entry for birch beer says “It has a taste similar to root beer.” This is offensive to me, as a southeastern Pennsylvania. I grew up with the red kind, though there certainly were clear birch beers available in a non-gimmicky way (Crystal Pepsi it is not). There are three colors of birch beer, which may or may not vary in flavor: red, brown, and clear. “Naturally it would be a clear birch beer,” he says, but adding coloring is common. They’re then mixed with simple syrup and some standard preservatives, and caramel color is added right at the end. The oils are usually made from the sap rather than the bark of the birch tree. Kutztown gets birch essential oils from a supplier in Maryland. The process of making it these days is a little different. “Around here, birch beer’s more popular than root beer,” he said. “They used to bottle beer here in Kutztown, and with Prohibition they had to do something, so they started making their own line of sodas and birch beer happened to be the most popular one.” Birch beer isn’t unheard of in neighboring states like Maryland and New York, but it certainly isn’t common there the way it is in eastern Pennsylvania. “We started making birch beer during Prohibition,” he says. I called Andy Schlegel, the manager of Kutztown Bottling Works in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, which, under various owners, has been making and selling birch beer for decades.
The solids would be strained out and the solution fermented with yeast, usually resulting in what’s called a “small beer,” meaning a beer with only 2-3% alcohol. The bark would be boiled in water for a long time, softening it and releasing its essential oils. Traditionally, it’s made from the bark of the birch tree, specifically the black birch, which is also known as the spice birch or sweet birch. And so it is with the soda preferred by Pennsylvanians, including a strange reddish herbal soda I grew up drinking and didn’t realize was odd until I left.īirch beer is made using a similar process to root beer or sarsaparilla. A regular round soft pretzel is wrong - or worse, from New York. Philadelphia soft pretzels have a unique thin, rectangular, symmetrical shape with the knot right in the middle. Also incorrect: a soft pretzel in a traditional pretzel shape. An Italian hoagie with mayo is incorrect. An Italian hoagie must not, under any circumstances, contain mayonnaise it must have olive oil. Using only the best ingredients, including real cane sugar, Foxon Park Soda has become a drink of choice throughout many parts of Connecticut and has started to garner interest in other parts of the country as well.Perhaps the defining quality of the cuisine of southeastern Pennsylvania, where I grew up, is a fierce opinion about small differences. Ownership has been passed from generation to generation and still remains in the family today, continuing the tradition that was started so long ago.Īlthough much has changed over the years, the recipe has remained the same. Home delivery and a vast variety of flavors were the keys to success back then, and unique flavors such as Iron Brew (a drink made famous in Scotland), Gassosa (a lemon flavored Italian soda), Birch Beer, Root Beer, and many others set Foxon Park Sodas apart from the vast competition. He quickly embraced the entrepreneurial spirit of his era and decided to open up a beverage company called “Foxon Park,” named after the street on which it resided at the time.
was founded in 1922 in East Haven, Connecticut by Matteo Naclerio, an immigrant from Italy. INGREDIENTS: Carbonated water, aspartame, sodium benzoate (preservative), natural and artificial flavors.įoxon Park Beverages, Inc.