Do foreigners or other adults, like immigrant parents, ever mistake root beer as containing alcohol?

I taught English to a family from Yemen who wouldn’t drink it. We spent a long time on that one.

I would think so.

It’s called Root Beer because it’s made from the sassafras root. It’s an old drink, like from Pioneer days. It froths like beer, and looks like a dark lager. Maybe the process of making it was a lot like beer. (I’m just guessing on that.)

BTW I’m pretty sure most chilluns think “beer” the first time they hear it.

I bet my inlaws have never seen nor heard of root beer. I remember my husband asking me about it years ago. It didn’t occur to me he might think it was alcohol. He asked me what it tastes like.

@RedDeerGuy1 You focused on “foreigners”. I bet most visitors to Canada from the US enjoy root beer and root beer floats, and would drink it if you offered it to them.