Sprecher Fire Brewed Hard Root Beer

This 5.0% "beer" is from the Sprecher Brewery of Glendale, Wisconsin. I'm not sure this really qualifies as a beer, but it does have the word “beer” on the label.  I needed a sixth for a mixed six pack and this made me curious, so what the hell. 

It pours a very dark brown, nearing black, with a light tint of ruby, so, a lot like a dark root beer. There is a half-inch of off-white foam that quickly dissipates, leaving one ring around the glass. The aroma is root beer all the way, more of the old fashioned kind and not so much the A&W kind. It smells like the liquid version of the root beer barrel hard candy. The taste is horrific.  If it tasted like it smelled, that would be fine, but it is a mixture of really bad tasting root beer, cough medicine, with a shot of tart fruit juice thrown in. Overall it is sickly sweet. I’ve tried several sips, but I’ve got to drain pour the rest. Avoid at all costs.