Homemade soda is easy to make and a great science project for kids! They learn the basics of how yeast eats sugar to create CO2. An easy, fun, and rewarding way to make root beer is the "old-fashioned" way, like the way Grandpa used to make root beer. He would mix water, extract, sugar, and yeast. Then he would fill bottles with the mixture and place them in the fridge to chill. The yeast of choice was champagne yeast. However, this yeast created serious problems. Champagne yeast likes to work when cold, which can cause the bottles to over-carbonate and turn into grenades! We recommend ale yeast because the cold generally stops the yeast from over-carbonating and prevents the bottles from exploding.

Other ways to carbonate root beer and soda include kegging and using dry ice, both of which eliminate the need for yeast. To make and dispense root beer from a keg, you need a Cornelius keg, regulator, CO2 tank, and about 20 feet of 3/16-inch tubing. Dry ice can be fun to use, but handle it carefully: at -109°F, it can freeze skin cells and cause burn-like injuries.

Our soda flavors include Barking Birch Beer, Black Dawg Cherry, Cream Soda, Dr. Cherry, Ginger Snap Beer, Grape-Licious, Kool Cola, Orange Cream Soda, Raspberry Ginger Ale, and Sassy Sarsaparilla. Our root beer flavors include our original flavor #1 (temporarily unavailable), which has a robust, spicy "microbrew" style root beer taste similar to IBC's Root Beer (makes 5 gallons); old fashioned #2 tastes similar to Old Hires or Dad's style root beer (makes 2 ½ gallons), and #3 has a sweet and creamy gourmet taste like Thomas Kemper, Henry Weinhard's, Stewarts's, and Dog n Sud's Root Beer (makes 5 gallons), and Natural Root Beer Cream is root beer with a hint of cream.

Besides drinking your homemade root beer over ice, you can use it in other yummy, creative ways. You can make root beer ice cream, root beer floats, root beer hard candy, root beer frosting, root beer syrup on pancakes, root beer cookies, root beer cakes and muffins, root beer popsicles, glaze for pork, chicken, and bar-b-q ribs, root beer baked beans, and more.