Round Barn Root Beer

i believe this is a house brand of Pops66, they seem to have contracted to have it made for them. i suspect i may have gotten a bum bottle though as there is no carbonation whatsoever. either that or it was sitting around awhile before it was sent to me as i have not had it all that long at all. truth be told, i am doing reviews a good deal in advance of when they actually appear on the site as i have so many in queue right now. so i prefer to drink them quicker and space out the actually appearance for the future instead of having a whole load of em at once then nothing for a long time.
this drink is decent. the flavor is a slight variation on the usual root beer deal, a little bit fruitier i would say. it is rather sweet too but just below being overly so. but that lack of carbonation seems to really do it in, i need those bubbles and that fizz. the foam and the froth. it is not here at all. and that makes it just ok to me. if i can i will get another bottle of this brew and perhaps re-rate it as i think it should be better and probably is, yet i have nothing to go on except the one bottle i have so i can’t know for sure. alas.
i never quite know how i feel about the non-twist off cap either. on the one hand it is rather annoying, especially if i am out at a store and then wait to drink my soda after leaving and i have no way to do it. bottle openers are not all that ubiquitous these days. especially in savory establishments. but i like the feel of the bottle this way more, very smooth. plus i have a bottle opener at home and in my work bag so that covers most places i drink sodas. overall i guess i am more opposed to them than for them.

Anthony’s Rating: 61
Your Rating: 50
# of ratings:1

A & W Float

i have been hearing about this drink since it came out a year or so ago. people wrote in about it at first, something new! i have seen it in stores but did not bother buying it until now. the biggest reason i finally got it was because i found out Barq’s Floatz had been discontinued without me ever having tried it. i figured this too may not be long for this earth so i may as well get on it as soon as i can. i have low expectations here though. mainly because as much as i believe a root beer float drink is an interesting idea, it has never worked well in reality as far as i have found. and this does not either.
first off, they are wise to use the full bottle label, it disguises the vile color of the drink. although it is what one would expect, a cloudy dark beige color, it is still not appealing in any way.
second, i find it kind of suspect that on the website they say the shelf life is 6 months yet there is no way to know the age of your bottle unless you call the local bottler to interpret the bottling codes printed on the bottom. there is also no mention of this pretty sort shelf life on the product itself. granted, it IS a sort of dairy product so even 6 months seems a long time to have anything with milk in it to remain good, which then makes me suspicious of the chemicals in here that allow that to happen.
on the whole this taste alright, at least at first, after about 10 seconds it becomes sort of vile. but at first it is decent, kind of like if you poured some cream in your flat root beer, very creamy, very rich, but also strange. it taste vaguely like root beer, a very sweet version but the flavor is there. i feel like i would enjoy root beer flavored milk but maybe not since it might taste like this. but at least i would get more protein and calcium (1g and 4% respectively) that way. and there is an insane amount of sugar in here! about 50% more than normal root beers.
i will say that this is the best of the 3 or 4 other root beer float sodas i have had, which is saying very little i guess since they were awful.

Anthony’s Rating: 31
Your Rating: 12
# of ratings:5

Real Soda in Real Bottles Girlan Pink Birch Beer

i got this as a replacement for something else i hoped to get from Pops66 which was not in stock. but i have no complaints at all about that! a pink birch beer! interesting. it is brought to you by the fine folks who do real soda in real bottles. i can’t say i understand the concept too much, or the design but they are extremely nice people over there. so the label proclaims “brings out the little flower in you” and “Mama Cornalano’s Jersey Girl recipe” and it has a german sort of bird insignia in the birch tree pictured. i do very much like that they printed “REAL CANE SUGAR” on the bottle itself where many companies print bottling dates or whatever.
i went into this review thinking this would taste like birch beer, even remotely and that the pink was just a fun gimmick. but no, it tastes like what you expect pink soda to taste like, which is what everyone? yup, bubblegum! i do very much enjoy bubblegum. in gum. not in soda. or liquid in general. unless it is that gum that squirts out a liquid center when you bite it, but that is actually “in gum” too when it comes down to it. for me, there is no trace of anything to do with birch beer here. maybe this is some sort of statement on how “birch beer” can be a very loose label and you can make it taste like almost anything and still call it “birch beer?” i don’t think so. the bubblegum-ness is interesting i suppose as i don’t think i have had other bubblegum flavored sodas, but it is also gross. sorry Danny at Real Soda, but i must be honest here. i don’t like it. it is not offensively bad though, it is drinkable. although i am torn as to the best way to drink it: slowly so i don’t overwhelm my belly or quickly to just get it down. it is incredibly sweet and almost sticky, even sweeter than i like, which is pretty crazy. i wanted to enjoy this but i just don’t.
they also make “Lurch Birch” which i will be getting to soon. that one is the “left coast recipe” and i think more traditional. if this is supposed to be the east coast style beverage then i am almost enraged. birch beer is an east coast thing, twisting and messing with flavors, combining weird junk is a west coast thing. so i would vote to switch the designations on these two brews. oh well.
and isn’t red #40 a major carcinogen? uh oh….

Anthony’s Rating: 30
Your Rating: 7
# of ratings:1

my TV debut

9/23 - well, i was on once before at least, around 1985 when sticker collecting was huge and they sent a camera crew to Michelle Trujillo or Lisa Solozo’s house to film a bunch of kids trading stickers and junk. or i think i was on that. i could be wrong.

anyway, the “soft drink” episode of Modern Marvels will air on the History Channel next monday, 9/29/08 at 8 pm EST. it sounds jam packed with stuff so i am not sure at all how much of my footage made it but we shall see. tune in and see my smiling mug in motion as i discuss something or other about root beer.

UPDATE 9/29 so the show will NOT air tonight, it is now scheduled for 10/4/08 probably. but i don’t see it on the history channel schedule for that day so i guess we will see. sorry to anyone who tunes in tonight and it is not on. oh well. just have to wait.

UPDATE 10/27 ok so the show will be on “early 2009″ now. ug. oh well. i wait. sorry for the lack of updates for all of you waiting to see it too.

Saint Arnold Root Beer

ah, another soda which i have been thwarted in my efforts to obtain for quite some time now! finally mine to taste! it is quite frustrating to get multiple emails to the effect of “hey anthony, Saint Arnold Root Beer roxxxXx! get some in Texas!” not that i mind at all getting such emails. i do appreciate it but knowing that there is a soda out there i have not had and may not ever have if it stops being made as so many others have been before i get a chance to go someplace i have no plan to go to.
the label here reminds me much more of a regular beer label than of a soda label. it lacks the usual orange, brown & white color scheme so prevelant in root beer advertising and packaging. in fact i may not even notice this beverage in a local cooler on first glance if it were near the alcohol/pop border. but that is not a bad thing, just a different thing.
that different trend continues in the actual flavor of this root beer. there is some underlying taste here that i cannot place. overall it has a very wintergreen flavor with a rooty, herbal undertone that makes it much heartier than a birch beer which is more typically the soda to taste of wintergreen. i do like the mouth feel of the cane sugar, it adds character to this drink. well, MORE character as it seems to have a lot on it own. i am enjoying the root beer here in my hand but i am not totally loving it. there is a fine line between a very good root beer and an amazing one and this just does not get into that latter category but is for sure in the former. plus the cap says “yummy root beer”. i quite enjoy truth in advertising i must say. yummy indeed.

Anthony’s Rating: 87
Your Rating: 100
# of ratings:1

Empire Bottling Works Spruce Beer

alright, so i finally have a bottle of the long sought after Spruce Beer!! it is a different branch off the root beer tree, using spruce roots and bark for its flavoring, which is seemingly popular in eastern Canada mostly. pretty much every review or opinion on this genre seems negative, that it tastes like drinking Pine-Sol cleanser or licking a pine cone. thus i am expecting the worst here. which may actually help its cause.
so the initial scent is indeed quite pine-like, which is to be expected i think from a SPRUCE beer, being in the evergreen family and all. the first taste… hhhmmmm, interesting. i can definitely see the Pine-Sol reference but it is not as bad as that sounds. it is almost similar to a spicy ginger beer to me. well, between that and a birch beer i suppose. but definitely that sharp, very upfront mouth feel that spicy ginger beers have. it is a unique taste to be certain. i would not want this every day just as i would not want a lot of things every day but i would enjoy this occasionally. it is quite well carbonated so that sharp edge keeps on coming back and slicing opening your mouth pieces. this is almost harsh, it goes down rough and makes you recognize that you are drinking it. at least if you are not used to it, you can’t just casually sip this in a distracted way while you meditate or something, it takes your attention and holds it while you sip and swallow and burp up the gasses. i don’t see this ever catching up big at all, it is weird. but then again, a lot of soda flavors are weird (Dr Pepper anyone?) yet make it big. get some major marketing behind this stuff and it could be huge!
so yeah, it is kinda sweet, pine-esque, a little spicy and very hard to ignore or put down. and sort of tasty.

Anthony’s Rating: 75
Your Rating: 92
# of ratings:1

Reading Draft White Birch Beer

the same fellow who sent me the Reading root beer also sent this one along! i love my readers, such kind folk. now even more so i have to get out to Reading and get the other varieties to sample and review. someday. perhaps once my daughter is born and junk. right now junk is a little busy. =)
i found it a little funny that the ingredients here are exactly the same as the root beer, minus the carmel color. i guess it is all in those “natural and/or artificial flavors!” i always have high hopes for white birch beers, after so many sodas drank i would say they are my favorite as a genre.
this one does not disappoint but it is a little weak. it has the expected and hoped for wintergreen mint taste yet a little too little of it. the carbonation level is slightly high so it adds that sharp kick to it, making it less smooth. i guess to me that is slightly incompatible. if it is not so flavorful i want it to be smoother overall. but then again, the bite does make you slow down a little and enjoy the flavor that is there.
i like the sweetness level and that it is from cane sugar. on that count it does very well.
overall this soda is excellent, it just lacks a tiny bit of flavor. pump up the natural flavors and you have a very very great soda.

Anthony’s Rating: 86
Your Rating: 70
# of ratings:2

Vitalon Salty Sarsaparilla

this actually scares me a little. i have never had salty sarsaparilla. i have had lots of salty limeade which i love, so maybe this will be similar somehow? i feel the answer is no and it will be gross. ok, it smells ok so far… how for the taste… hhhmmm, not actually salty at all. strange. it actually has a similar taste to the other Asian sarsaparillas i have had, mainly Sarsi but there was another i think too. anyway the flavor is very herbal and unique to this sub-genre of sodas. it is almost bitter and not very sweet despite the presence of two sweeteners. it verges on medicinal at times but not in a really bad way, more in a kind of tasty medicine way. “kind of tasty” being the key here as it does not actually taste all that good. different does not equal good so much in this case. i could drink it but i would prefer not to do so. i don’t think i have ever seen “carbon dioxide” as an ingredient, especially right in the middle of the list which means this gas weighs more than than the stuff after it like caramel. weird also. the carbonation is high though so perhaps there is merit to that claim. i will never know! it actually seems to taste worse the more i drink. maybe since i was fearful of it to start i expected the worst and when it was ok i was surprised. i wonder if there is a whole world of Taiwanese sarsaparillas out there…

Anthony’s Rating: 41
Your Rating: 60
# of ratings:1

root beer vodka

so i guess there is now root beer vodka out there in the world. since i don’t drink alcohol myself i will rely on other’s opinions on the stuff. i came upon this from the consumerist today but i see there are loads already out there.
so i will let you read them. the consensus seems to be it is stinky though. at least by itself. maybe adding vanilla ice cream is ok. or maybe vanilla vodka with root beer added is tasty.
i shall never know i suppose.

but if you want to yourself, go for it.

Laura Lynn Root Beer

i have not reviewed a store brand in a while i suppose. partly since i would rather not do so, they all taste very similar really and i am not sure people care so much about them. but sometimes you do find something different so i press on with them. actually i have no clue where or when i got this soda. it has to be at least a year old since that was the last time i was in the area where Ingles Markets are. but it could be 2 or 3 years old really. oh well, whatever.
this drink right here is ok. surpringly it is not very flavorful though. i get the idea that it is root beer but i don’t taste it a lot. i feel that if you are going to go for the generic root beer flavor you should really be up front. and it is not. but it is also not light enough of a flavoring to be refreshing and yummy in that way either. as i said, it is ok. just ok. very carbonated so i am sure i will be burping for hours, quite sweet with a little acidic kick but that does not save it here really. i would save my 12 cents or whatever this costs and get something more expensive and better if i could next time.

Anthony’s Rating: 41
Your Rating: 0
# of ratings:0