Free root beer day returns to Ontario this weekend

Root beer fans rejoice — free beverages are on offer this weekend in Ontario and across Canada.

After a four-year hiatus, the A&W free root beer day returns on Saturday, July 6.

“The last time we did a national Root Beer giveaway was 2019,” says Amanda Wang, director of marketing at A&W Canada in a press release. “Call it our comeback era, Free Root Beer Day is back at A&W this summer!”

Customers can get a complimentary root beer or diet root beer all day on July 6, both in the restaurants and on the A&W Mobile app.

There is a limit of one root beer per guest.

The drink has a long history in North America.

Root beer appeared in recipe books the United States around the 1830s. Traditionally made from the root bark of the sassafras tree, the drink was thought to have medicinal qualities.

Sassafras oil was deemed unsafe in the 1960s and banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is typically not used in root beer today.

A&W Root Beer has been on the menu in Canada since the opening of the first restaurant in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1956.

Lead photo: Markmark28