In Honor Of Mother’s Day We Review Not Your Mom’s Flavored Beers

As we enter the weekend celebrating our mothers, we felt it was fitting to taste through the new lineup of Not Your Mom’s Flavored Beers. This trio of flavored malt beverages from Small Town Brewery includes Not Your Mom’s Apple Pie, Not Your Mom’s Strawberry Rhubarb and Not Your Mom’s Iced Tea.

Back in 2010 Tim Kovac founded Small Town Brewery in the Chicago suburb of Wauconda, Illinois. It was not until 2012 that he began releasing his Not Your Father’s Root Beer to the public. This is when the Root Beer came in at a whopping 19.5% ABV. He then reduced the ABV down to 10.7% and then to 5.9% in November 2014 in hopes of gaining wider release. Then when Kovac partnered with Pabst Brewing to distribute its root beer sales began to skyrocket that led to both MillerCoors and Anheuser Busch along with Boston Beer and a few others to release a lineup of hard sodas.

Then a few months ago in March Not Your Father’s decided to honor his better half with a lineup of Not Your Mothers Flavored Malt Beverages (FMB). All three are brewed in La Crosse, Wisconsin at the former Old Style brewery that now goes by City Brewing. The idea for Not Your Mom’s was driven by consumer demand for fruit and tea flavors, which currently place within the top three most popular flavors across craft beer, cider and FMBs, two of which are crafted in an on-trend dessert style.

“As the category leader, we are always looking to innovate to meet our consumers’ evolving needs,” said Gleb Lifshits, CEO, Small Town Brewery in a news release. “With their immersive flavors and homemade appeal, Not Your Mom’s fruit- and dessert-inspired brews represent the next generation in flavored craft,” he added. “We look forward to consumer response on this unique brand extension; the pre-launch excitement on our social channels has been phenomenal.”

So what does the Not Your Mother’s lineup taste like? We decided to take the challenge and dive into both pies and iced tea flavors…

Not Your Mom’s Brewery Descriptions:

Not Your Mom’s Apple Pie
Label States: This beer is as American as mom’s apple pie. In fact we brew it with Madagascar vanilla and cinnamon. To bring you a crisp one of a kind dessert brew. 5.5% ABV
Our review: Strong, prominent aromas of cinnamon lead into a sweetness that does offer up notes of a liquid apple pie. Wow, the cinnamon is over powering and as it warms becomes more artificial tasting.

Not Your Mom’s Strawberry Rhubarb
Label States: This beer is the perfect balance of sweet and tart with real Madagascar vanilla. Like mom’s fresh pie every sip take you home. 5.9% ABV
Our review: Upon pouring this into our glass we notice a vivid pink hue to the beverage. The nose is strawberry and the addition of rhubarb leaves a subtle tartness in the finish. The label states that the only artificial part of this beverage is in its color. This is our favorite of the bunch.

Not Your Mom’s Iced Tea
Lable States: This is the perfect refreshing brew. Crafted with the finest tea leaves from India. It will remind you of mom’s home-brewed tea recipe. 5.2% ABV
Our review: Aromas of fresh brewed iced tea but with a bit of dryness that lingers on the finish are brought forth from this FMB. It succeeds better than many other “tea” offerings in the FMB category but does not offer much.

After sampling all three of the Not Your Mom’s, it reminds us of tasting through the old Holiday Pack from Jones Soda but with alcohol. If you cannot recall this Holiday Pack would vary a bit from year to year but would feature some outrageous soda flavors such as Turkey and Gravy, Smoked Salmon Pate, Corn on the Cob, Green Bean Casserole and more. Always intriguing to try but will end in regretting that decision.

Not Your Mom’s suggests drinking these straight from the chilled bottle, or serving Not Your Mom’s Apple Pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for an Apple Pie a la Mode. We wish we had had some ice cream on hand to enhance this experience.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers out there!

Not Your Mom’s is available in six-packs of 12 oz. bottles as well as 24 oz. individual cans of Iced Tea for “grab n’ go” convenience.