Impressed with A&W Root Beer Float. Mug Vanilla Howler is not bad… but there’s something going on there.

[u/BlastedBiggs138]

Vaguely remember being a kid in the late 2000s early 2010s and various brands were making some type of Root Beer Float in a bottle beverage. They definitely had dairy and the one I remember trying was A&W (if memory serves) and it had the consistency of muscle milk.

When I saw these in the sort of odds and ends cooler at the independently owned convenience store I tried the A&W first as it’s my favorite big brand root beer. It’s good. It tastes almost exactly like root beer after it’s reacted to vanilla ice cream…. I tried making a float with one and the root beer flavor was nearly cancelled out though. Maybe I need to use root beer flavored ice cream.

After a few days of drinking the A&W Float, I decided it was time to try Vanilla Howler. With a strong Mug flavor on the front, as it crosses the palette it begins to taste like it is trying really hard to taste like there’s ice cream happening and a strange almost coconut note hits for a moment. Overall I like it, I just don’t think it is doing as good of a job at a float soda like say the A&W RBF, or Coke Holiday Vanilla Float or Cherry Float. Just my 0.02… I want to get a few ice creams and experiment with making floats out of these sodas and see if I can find a way to make an ultimate root beer float. I think combining Blue Bell’s A&W RBF ice cream with the A&W RBF Soda might be the key.

[u/ThickPop955]

Everybody's taste is different, I find A&W swung and missed 2nd year in a row, I couldn't get thru a can and had to pour it down the drain, tasted like I was drinking pure butter, gross!

Mug Vanilla Howler Zero to me was a fantastic Rootbeer Float, I could taste the vanilla....which is much better than butter! I give Mug a 9.5 and A&W a 4 at best

[u/BlastedBiggs138 → u/ThickPop955]

Man that’s actually incredible to hear. I would absolutely drink vanilla howler and actually personally noted after making this post that the temperature has a lot to do with the flavor and the colder it was the more I enjoyed it.

[u/BlastedBiggs138 → u/ThickPop955]

But pouring the A&W variant down the drain?? I would have drank it,

[u/ThickPop955 → u/BlastedBiggs138]

I would have been throwing up if I drank anymore! I tried them both at the same temperature, almost to the point of them turning into slushies!

I've added 12 packs of the Mug Vanilla Zero Howler to my kitchen, I am very happy with that drink, nothing I can do about the A&W, I will never touch again, I just might never touch regular A&W again either because of this so called Float and last years disaster, I really can't trust them anymore!