Another birch beer tap has run dry this summer at the Delaware beaches.
Nicola Pizza told Delaware Online/The News Journal that it no longer offers fountain Fanta birch beer.
“We don’t unfortunately,” a Nicola Pizza spokesperson said Wednesday night.
The longtime pizzeria, which has served birch beer for years, is popular with locals and tourists. It moved operations last year from its two downtown Rehoboth Beach locations and consolidated at a new, larger site off Delaware Route 1 in Lewes.
Nicola’s, like some other food establishments in Delaware and Maryland, has had to switch to filling glasses from its beverage dispensers with Barq’s Root Beer, owners said.
In recent weeks, Grotto Pizza, the Frederick, Maryland-based chain of Roy Rogers restaurants and restaurants in Ocean City, Maryland, including Alaska Stand on the boardwalk, have said they too have switched from Fanta Birch Beer to Barq’s Root Beer.
Old-school fountain soft drink is gone:Taps run dry on birch beer served for decades at Grotto Pizza
So, what the hey and why is this even important non-alcoholic beverage news?
Well, birch beer aficionados might say, “If you know, you know.”
Birch beer is a regional carbonated beverage made from herbal extracts and birch bark that has a minty, wintergreen flavor. It’s mainly sold in the Northeastern part of the United States, especially in pizza parlors and old-school burger restaurants. It tends to have a sharper bite than creamy root beer.
Where did it go?Everything you need to know about Nicola Pizza’s new Lewes location
While Coca-Cola, which owns Fanta soda, has produced the birch beer flavor for years, the company has recently discontinued the production of the syrup for fountain drinks.
Fanta birch beer in cans hasn’t been produced since at least the 2000s. Coca-Cola also owns Barq’s brand of sodas. It also has stopped making Barq’s Birch Beer, but still has root beer.
“Due to high demand of certain products and supply disruptions, we’ve had to temporarily shift our focus toward producing the products with the highest demand,” the Coca-Cola Co. Consumer Interaction Center of North America told Delaware Online/The News Journal.
It’s not the end of birch beer, which some historians say has been around since the 17th century.
Some stores on the East Coast still sell cans and bottles of Pennsylvania Dutch birch beer and the Boylan Bottling Co.’s Original Birch Beer, and Creamy Red Birch. Boylan also has a fountain soda program.
Contact Patricia Talorico at ptalorico@delawareonline.com and follow her on Twitter @pattytalorico Sign-up for herDelaware Eats newsletter
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