When the leaves begin to turn and the air grows crisp, our palates often shift from the light, fruity flavors of summer to the warmer, spicier notes of fall. Cinnamon, nutmeg, maple, and ginger become evocative scents, and for many, these flavors bring to mind the comforting taste of root beer. Among the myriad root beer brands available, IBC stands out with its rich history and distinctive flavor profile.
The Giants of Root Beer
When considering favorite root beers, several major brands likely come to mind: A&W, Hires, IBC, Stewarts, Barq’s, Mug, and the more recent Thomas Kemper Root Beer. These seven have solidified their positions as widely distributed and popular varieties. These brands are owned and bottled by major soft drink companies, including Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Coca-Cola Company, and Pepsi Co.
The Genesis of Root Beer
The entrepreneurial spirit has always been a driving force in the beverage industry. Charles E. Hires, a Philadelphia pharmacist, is often credited with sparking the root beer craze. In the early 1870s, while on his honeymoon, Hires stumbled upon an old herbal tea recipe. He refined it, creating a refreshing, carbonated drink made from roots, berries, herbs, water, sugar, and yeast. This innovative concoction could be easily made at home by mixing the ingredients.
Hires revolutionized the soft drink business with unprecedented advertising campaigns. His product, synonymous with quality, gained national recognition after its introduction at the 1876 World’s Fair in Philadelphia. Across the country, households used Hire’s home brew root beer kits to make their own drinks.
A&W: From Parade Stand to National Franchise
In Lodi, California, a simple street vending operation that began during a parade on June 20, 1919, evolved into a successful restaurant franchising business centered around its signature root beer. Roy Allen sold his root beer for 5 cents a mug during a parade celebrating the homecoming of World War I veterans. The profits were enough to entice a business partner, Frank Wright. The prevalence of A&W roadside franchises exploded simultaneously with the automobile boom of the 1950s.
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In 1963, after Allen’s retirement, the A&W Root Beer Company was sold to the J. Hungerford Smith Company, which had manufactured the soft drink concentrate for the restaurants since 1921. Bottled A&W first became available in grocery stores in 1971. The company continued to innovate, introducing new flavors like A&W Cream and Diet Cream Sodas in the 1980s. Cadbury Schweppes acquired A&W in 1993.
IBC Root Beer: A Prohibition-Era Innovation
In 1919, the Griesedieck family, operators of the Independent Breweries Company (IBC), developed an alternative to their usual line of alcoholic beverages in response to Prohibition. The result was a tasty root beer native to St. Louis, which quickly became a local favorite. Unfortunately, the brewery closed.
The trademark for the beverage changed hands twice during the 1920s and 1930s, appearing in local restaurants. The drink experienced a major resurgence after World War II, when The Seven-Up Company purchased IBC and began promoting it throughout the Midwest and South. In 1986, The Dr Pepper Company purchased The Seven-Up Company, finally making IBC available nationwide.
Other Notable Root Beer Brands
Stewart’s Root Beer, along with its spin-offs like Black Cherry, Oranges ‘n Cream, and Berries ‘n Cream, are also owned by Dr Pepper Snapple Group following the split with Cadbury Schweppes. Frank Stewart started his own root beer stand in 1924, selling his brew in ice-cold mugs to supplement his schoolteacher’s salary. Stewart sold his soda in the early 1990s, and cream soda and ginger beer were later added to the Stewart’s family.
Barq’s Root Beer was first produced by Edward Barq in the late 1800s at his bottling company, Biloxi Artesian Bottling Works in Mississippi. The marketing strategy emphasized the product’s differences compared to other root beers on the market. In fact, the product avoided calling itself a root beer to avoid infringing upon Hires, who was attempting to trademark the term, “Root Beer.” Barq’s was caffeinated, with less sugar, and a stronger sarsaparilla base. Barq’s grew a faithful following, and two companies bottled the product independently of each other.
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MUG Root Beer, native to San Francisco, California, began as a product of the Belfast Beverage Company, which marketed the drink locally. After seeing local success, the company renamed itself MUG Old Fashioned Root Beer and took the product nationwide. A sugar-free variety was added in the 1960s, followed by a companion cream soda.
In 1990, during an Oktoberfest celebration in Poulsbo, Washington, the Thomas Kemper Brewing Company’s resident brewmaster crafted the first batch of root beer using honey as a sweetening agent. A year later, the Thomas Kemper Soda Company was formed to deliver the product to the people. Throughout the 1990s, the company changed hands many times, but it continued to produce the remarkably smooth root beer that made it famous. In 2008, all traces of high fructose corn syrup were replaced with pure cane sugar, solidifying its reputation as a premium product.
The Independent Breweries Company (IBC)
IBC Root Beer’s history began in St. Louis, Missouri, during Prohibition and grew into a national brand. In 1919, Prohibition forced brewers to find alternatives to alcoholic beverages. The Independent Breweries Company united several established breweries: National Brewery (owned by the Griesediecks), Columbia (makers of Alpen Brau), Gast, A.B.C., and Wagner. This consolidation allowed the Griesediecks to adapt to a world without alcohol, producing a root beer that satisfied the public in both taste and quality. IBC Root Beer's rich, creamy flavor gained widespread appeal, attracting customers across social classes during this period of enforced sobriety.
Changes in Ownership
The new company didn’t last long once hard financial times hit. The Great Depression forced IBC to close its doors. The Northwestern Bottling Company, owned by the Kranzberg family, acquired the IBC trademark. However, the brand continued to struggle. By the late 1930s, the Kranzbergs sold IBC to the Shucart family's National Bottling Company. It was a period of instability for IBC root beer, but it survived.
Part of Dr Pepper Snapple Group
IBC continued to change hands as the American beverage market evolved. Taylor Beverages bought the brand in 1976, followed by Seven-Up Company's purchase in 1980. In 2008, IBC joined the Dr Pepper Snapple Group, where it remains today as Keurig Dr Pepper.
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Reformulation and Packaging Changes
In July 2016, IBC reformulated its beverages, switching from high-fructose corn syrup to cane sugar. This change aligned with consumers' growing preference for natural ingredients and altered the taste. At the same time, the company redesigned its packaging to blend traditional brand elements with contemporary style. The bottles now come in packs of four instead of six, and the IBC logo is printed on a plain brown bottle instead of being molded into the glass.
IBC Today
As of 2020, IBC offers a focused product line that serves its core customers. The logo features the letters “I,” “B,” and “C,” each standing distinctly separate.
What is Root Beer?
Root beer is a sweet, nonalcoholic, carbonated beverage commonly flavored with extracts of roots and herbs. Invented in North America, the drink has characteristic herbal, earthy notes traditionally imparted by sassafras root (Sassafras albidum), wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens), or sarsaparilla (a flavoring agent made from Smilax species), and other natural flavorings such as birch (Betula species) and juniper (Juniperus species).
Root beer can be bought at most supermarkets and enjoyed at home. It also can still be found served with ice cream, making for a classic root beer float, at old-fashioned soda fountains and ice cream parlors.
The Roots of Root Beer
It is thought that modern, carbonated root beer was originally inspired by the non-carbonated medicinal root teas made by Indigenous North Americans. Although such teas were made from any number of fragrant leaves, roots, barks, fruits, and flowers, the plants sassafras, wintergreen, and sarsaparilla were commonly used, and these three ingredients would define commercial root beer’s flavor profile going forward. Sassafras, in particular, was known for its health benefits and had been used to treat a number of ailments for centuries prior to modern root beer’s inception.
In the 19th century, American colonists brewed the antecedent root beers in their homes from a variety of ingredients, often serving their concoctions as hot teas. In the 1840s, the first root beer began to appear in confectionaries and general stores, bottled in stoneware and sold for medicinal use. It is unknown when people began to add carbonation to traditional root beers, but there are records indicating that one early entrepreneur, George Twitchell of Philadelphia, began selling a root concentrate syrup intended to be mixed with soda in 1850. Root beer recipes can be found in cookbooks dating back to the 1860s.
With so many possible ingredients and combinations, individuals and families often developed their own unique root beer recipes that they in turn passed down to younger generations. Many of these were brewed by adding aromatic plant extracts and a sweetener (often molasses) to water. Beyond the standard sassafras, wintergreen, and sarsaparilla, other aromatics such as ginger (Zingiber officinale), birch bark, licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra), hops (Humulus lupulus), vanilla (Vanilla species), burdock (Arctium minus) root, dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) root, coriander (Coriandrum sativum), cherry (Prunus avium) bark, and guiacum (Guiacum species) gum also appeared in early root beverages. The mixture was then cooked down to a syruplike consistency, at which point more water was added along with a small amount of yeast and the beverage was left to ferment (small amounts of alcohol were usually present in early root beers).
The Rise of Commercial Root Beer
Root beer was first marketed and sold on a mass scale by Hires. Hires, a teetotaler, began selling his nonalcoholic root drink in powder form: a 25-cent packet could garner five gallons (19 liters) of the beverage. Hires claimed to have taken the original recipe from an innkeeper who had brewed a root tea for him and his wife on their honeymoon. Hires debuted his proprietary “root beer”-a name he introduced to make the drink more attractive to coal miners-at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. Although the inclusion of “beer” in its name brought the ire of the powerful Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Hires’s product eventually took off, creating a new nationwide market and inspiring competition in turn. One early competitor was Edward Barq, who first began bottling his root beer in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1897. In 1919 Roy W. Allen opened the first A&W root beer stand in Lodi, California. IBC root beer was first sold the same year in St. Louis, Missouri. These three brands-A&W, Barq’s, and IBC-are still favorites today. Root beer’s popularity exploded during Prohibition and continued to grow throughout the 20th century.
Modern Root Beer
Modern mass-produced root beer is usually made with a proprietary mixture of carbonated water, high-fructose corn syrup or sugar, caramel coloring (to give the product its trademark dark brown appearance), and small amounts of natural and artificial flavorings.
In 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned safrole, the aromatic oil in sassafras, citing its potential to cause liver damage and certain cancers. In response, most producers began using a safrole-free sassafras extract. Each of the major commercial brands of root beer has its own characteristic flavorings. For example, Barq’s uses gum acacia (Acacia senegal), while IBC uses quillaia (Quillaja saponaria). Some root beers have zero-sugar or diet lines, which use artificial sweeteners such as aspartame. With the notable exception of Barq’s, most do not contain caffeine.
A number of at-home and small-scale root beer operations generally use more traditional methods and extracts. In the mid-2010s, some small craft beer breweries began making alcoholic root beers.