What is the difference between birch beer and root beer?

Kainantu

Root beer has its origins in what is referred to as "small beers." Small beers are a collection of local beverages (some alcoholic, some not) made during colonial times in America from a variety of herbs, barks, and roots that included: birch beer, sarsparilla beer, ginger beer and root beer. Ingredients in early root beers included allspice, birch bark, coriander, juniper, ginger, wintergreen, hops, burdock root, dandelion root, spikenard, pipsissewa, guaiacum chips, sarsaparilla, spicewood, wild cherry bark, yellow dock, prickly ash bark, sassafras root*, vanilla beans, hops, dog grass, molasses and licorice. Many of these ingredients are still used in root beer today along with carbonation. There is no one recipe. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_root_beer.htm … birch beer came from birch trees, sarsaparilla came from sassafras trees and root beer came from one or more of many different trees, most often the sassafras tree. Recipes: http://www.annoyances.com/rb/links.html Jun 10 04, 9:15 PM