To my knowledge, anyway, there is in the United States only one--count 'em, one!--producer and bottler of real root beer. Everything else sold with that title is made with synthetic flavors.

About three years ago my Beautiful Wife and I attended the National Folk Festival in Lansing, Michigan, and this small family company had a booth. The guy who runs the little family company gave a nice talk about root beer, and his family's history of making it and marketing it.   He's the one that made the claim contained in my first paragraph.

Good stuff, too!

No, no low-cal, no-cal, or sugarless root beer. He said they had looked into it, and the stuff that resulted just didn't meet the traditional flavor, and they won't make it.

Dave Oesterreich