By Kelley Chambers
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — When Rick Huebert got into the beer brewing business, his young son, Aaron, wanted something to drink, too.
In between making two varieties of handcrafted beer at his budding brewery in south Oklahoma City in 2003, Huebert came up with a recipe for a regular root beer, which he made in small batches on the side. At that time he was brewing a root beer with alcohol called Rock Hard Root Beer.
But what started out as a drink for his son and friends has turned into the top-selling drink at Pops, the soda pop theme restaurant, gas station and convenience store on Route 66 in Arcadia.
Now, a year after Pops opened, Huebert is introducing a signature beer for Pops, called Hops.
Pops opened last year to lines out-the-door and a constant stream of traffic, much of that to snag one of the 700 varieties of bottled soda pop.
With selections in nearly every flavor and variety imaginable, Huebert
“It’s amazing that it’s the number one seller over there with those hundreds of soda pops,” Huebert said.
Jessica Ockershauser, marketing manager for Pops, said Round Barn is always a top seller, right up there with a product called Route 66 Route Beer, a bottled root beer made in Chicago, the easternmost point of Route 66.
“It just proves that people are going in there more for the nostalgia and the label,” she said. “People come in and they want that Route 66 experience.”
When Pops was in the planning stages, the management began looking for Oklahoma-produced drinks to round out the variety of liquid offerings.
Ockershauser said the ownership and management of Pops found there weren’t many local brewers from which to choose.
When they came across Huebert, Ockershauser said, they were interested in carrying the alcoholic root beer but instead decided to carry a drink that would be more family oriented and asked if Huebert had anything to offer.
“I told them that I could make a nonalcoholic root beer since I was already making it for my son,” Huebert said.
Within a month of Pops opening, Huebert had Round Barn Root Beer stocked in the coolers at Pops.
Huebert said he produces about 5,000 bottles of Round Barn Root Beer for Pops every two months. In its first year about 700,000 bottles of soda pop of all varieties have been sold at Pops.
Huebert has also just started producing the Round Barn syrup in bags to be carbonated and served from the fountain at Pops.
Based on the success and customer response to Round Barn, Ockershauser said the store requested additional drinks from Huebert, this time including beer.
The first batch of Hops — adorned with a rabbit on the label — will be delivered soon. Huebert described the brew as a light, refreshing summer beer. He has produced about 15,000 bottles for the first run.
Ockershauser said they hope to have several varieties of Huebert’s beer and soda pop on the shelves within a year. Huebert now offers 16 bottled products.
But it was the root beer, alcoholic and otherwise, that put him on the map, and caught the attention of one of his biggest clients.
“I thought it would be pretty cool to see if I could brew an alcoholic root beer,” he said. “And then I did.”
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