Give that man a root beer

Andrew joins his root beer collection at the Plain Public Library. The collection started with six cans on top of his refrigerator. Photos courtesy of Reed Andrew

Reed Andrew was watching closely when Snoopy slipped through the French countryside, sidled up to a bar and drank from a giant mug of root beer while lamenting the state of the war.

"Root beer is cool, and it's because of Snoopy," said Andrew, the marketing associate for Kraemer Brothers LLC, Plain. "He was always throwing back root beers, and I grew up reading 'Peanuts' comic strips. That's weird, but …"

But, it's the reason Andrew, 36, formed the Society of Root Beer Cans & Bottles in 1992 while he was attending the University of Wisconsin-Baraboo. He spent the better part of the next five years searching for any kind of root beer bottle or can, investigating the shelves of small-town grocery stores, digging around in landfills and snooping through piles of refuse on country roads.

Andrew's root beer collection gets public notice in a display case at the Plain Public Library in 2005.

"I remember, it was about a year or two before I started collecting, I was served a root beer in a glass at someone's house," Andrew said. "I took a drink. I thought about it and said, 'This is Dad's.' If you blindfolded me, I could tell you if it was Barq's or A&W."

In the society's heyday, Andrew collected root beer from all over the world. Friends and family sent him bottles and cans, and he kept everyone updated with a regular newsletter, "Root Beer Revelry."

When he graduated from college in 1997, the society's tempo slowed. But he still collects, and he still has a few select cans and bottles set up in his kitchen. The collection now stands at more than 200 brands.

"My wife eventually gathers them up and puts them in a Rubbermaid," Andrew said. "The collection is waiting to go on display."

Andrew's "Root Beer Revelry" marks the heyday of his collecting. He sent the newsletter out regularly to members of his Society of Root Beer Cans & Bottles.

Andrew got just that chance in 2005 when the Plain Public Library took a portion of his collection and put it in a display case. The library then gave away root-beer floats for a day as part of a fund-raiser.

But it wasn't long before the bottles and cans were packed away, and Andrew was back to building a collection while sipping his favorite drink. Going beyond that to select his favorite root beer, however, is a difficult task.

"My favorite is probably Sprecher," he said. "It's the sweetest and best-tasting. If I had to take a can of root beer, I'd take A&W. Or you can go to an A&W stand and get it fresh. There are so many good root beers, it's kind of hard."

It's not so hard, Andrew said, to identify styles of root beer to avoid.

"I don't do diet," he said. "No, that's silly. Root beer and sugar, they've got to go together."

-Chris Thompson