Ryan Brennecke / The BulletinNot Your Fathers Root Beer is brewed with hops but relies on other herbs and botanical extracts as the main bittering and flavor agents. The resulting brew looks and tastes almost identical to non-alcoholic root beer sodas.

From vinyl records and bow ties to mid-century modern architecture, the popularity of all things retro has exploded in recent years. So it was probably inevitable this trend would also hit the craft beer market. The hottest new flavor for beer these days is actually one of the oldest around: root beer.

Sassafras root beverages were made by Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans, and fermented root beverages with relatively low alcohol content were made and consumed in Europe as far back as the 16th century. But most of us know root beer as the sweet, foamy, sarsaparilla soda that soared to popularity in the U.S. during the prohibition era. Good old root beer floats are still a hit with kids and kids at heart everywhere.

This nostalgia for the flavors of our childhood, along with a growing preference in the marketplace for sweeter beverages is driving the popularity of hard root beer. Leading the pack is Not Your Father’s Root Beer from Small Town Brewery in Wauconda, Illinois. Technically classified as a flavored beer, NYFRB is brewed with hops but relies on other herbs and botanical extracts as the primary bittering and flavoring agents.

Its brewing method is based on the ancient German tradition of “gruit,” or herb-based brewing, which preceded the use of hops. The dark spiced ale doesn’t taste much like the beer we’re used to. Instead, it tastes very much like its soda cousin — sweet, with prevalent flavors of sarsaparilla and vanilla. Small Town Brewery also uses birch, oak, ginger, wintergreen, licorice, honey, citrus, mint and other spices for added depth. The bottled version clocks in at 5.9% alcohol content, but any taste of alcohol is virtually unnoticeable so be sure to keep it well away from the kids.

Available on draft since 2012 in the Chicago area, recent investment by principals of Pabst Brewing has enabled Small Town Brewery to increase production of NYFRB and expand distribution nationwide, and consumers are eating — or in this case drinking — it up. Nielsen Food ranked NYFRB as the top selling six-pack in the craft beer category for the four-week period ending Sept. 12 with almost $14.5 million in sales nationally, according to Small Town Brewery. It ranked seventh in craft beer sales in Portland for the same period. BeerAdvocate currently gives NYFRB a score of 87 out of 100, and the Untappd mobile app awards it an average of 4.1 stars (out of a possible 5).

On the heels of NYFRB’s success, Brooklyn’s Coney Island Brewing Co. (a subsidiary of Samuel Adams’ maker, Boston Beer Company) released Coney Island Hard Root Beer this summer. Its 5.8% alcohol content is comparable to NYFRB and various reviewers say it tastes very similar. This hard root beer scores 82 from BeerAdvocate and 3.75 stars from Untappd. Some of the other boozy root beers on the market include Mission Brewery’s Mission Hard Root Beer (which won a gold medal at the 2015 U.S. Open Beer Championship), Berghoff Brewing’s Rowdy Root Beer and Sprecher Brewing’s Fire Brewed Hard Root Beer (a flavored malt beverage). However, most of these are harder to find due to limited distribution beyond their home bases. Hard ginger beers are also making some inroads in the same market space.

None of the Central Oregon brewers we contacted currently make hard root beer, although Deschutes Brewery makes its own root beer soda, which is sold in-house.

Jimmy Seifrit, brewmaster at 10 Barrel Brewing, said the company’s innovation team has experimented with hard root beer and is also looking at alcoholic flavored sodas, but none of these products is available to the public yet.

Broken Top Bottle Shop in Bend has stocked 12-ounce bottles of NYFRB for a few weeks, and owner Jason Powell said, “It’s being very well received. People are intrigued by the idea of an alcoholic root beer and will grab an individual bottle to try it out.”

Powell believes that the sweeter taste along with the familiar flavor is driving the popularity of alcoholic root beer.

“It appeals to people who may not care for the hops flavor of many beers,” he said.

NYFRB and Coney Island Hard Root Beer are available locally at Safeway, Fred Meyer, Albertsons and some other liquor, beer and wine stores. Coney Island is also available at Haggen, Cost Plus World Market, Whole Foods Market and Walmart.

— Reporter: 541-383-0350, khimstreet@bendbulletin.com