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Hello and welcome to the oldest, largest and frankly the best root beer reviewing site in the world! i also throw in birch beer and sarsaparilla review while i am at it. once in a while i even detour into other branches of the root beer tree, such as spruce beer, dandelion & burdock and the like. a new soda review publishes every monday with the occasional random post or review of root beer related stuff. feel free to submit your own ratings, check out the rankings from me and other visitors, see what sodas are available near you and more. anthony (me) started reviewing sodas in ’96 but has always loved the delicious joy of root beer and birch beer.

Sprecher Boom Chugga Lugga Cherry Root Beer

Jon is probably the only person i know who has more root beers than me. we have made a couple of trades in the past but as time goes on, it gets harder for each of us to find more sodas that the other has not had. if something new comes out, often we both get it. but we worked out another trade here and that is a good thing. a very good thing! Nine new sodas for me! hoorah!

this one is tricky. it comes in a Sprecher bottle, is made by Sprecher, but sold by Cherry Republic. i supposed i should probably file it under “Cherry Republic” instead of “Sprecher” but i decided not to.
i was pretty excited for this. afterall, besides root beer and the like, cherry soda is probably my favorite soda. i have considered starting a sister site to review cherry sodas even. i think ginger brews would be interesting too actually but they don’t vary quite as much as root beers or cherry sodas. anyway… so cherry and root beer together? hhhmmm, that could work. but does it? before i answer that, i will digress.
the label has a drawing of a bear picking cherries from the roots of a cherry tree. that is kind of clever and cute. more so since their normal cherry soda has the same bear picking cherries from the top of a cherry tree. they also make a cherry cola but that does not seem to have a witty illustration on its label. alas. the rest of the label has a background to make it look like wood. fine, whatever.
ok, so the taste? eh, it is ok. not really root beer tasting which is a bit surprising, being made by Sprecher and all. although there are no ingredients that would indicate it should have any root beer taste anyway. the cherry taste is definitely there, but not overpowering. it is a sweet, dark cherry taste with a little tart edge to it. hefty, not light and refreshing or anything. as a drink it is just ok. as a root beer, it disappoints. there is a little something beyond the cherry taste, a hint of something more, which could be the root beer aspect. it isn’t bad, it just isn’t awesome which i think it could have been.
Ingredients:carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, cherry juice concentrate, natural and artificial cherry flavor, citric acid, and sodium benzoate (preservative)

Anthony’s Rating: 76
User’s Rating: 28
# of ratings:2
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Fizzy Izzy Root Beer

this one was pointed out to me by the mighty Jon, otherwise i may never have found it. so thanks once again to him for that. granted, i then traded him a bottle from the six(6)-pack i ordered so he got some for his collection anyhow.

the soda is named after a tiger at Crown Ridge Tiger Sanctuary which aims to be 100% green. sounds good. i am not sure i see a connection between soda and tigers, but animals seem to inspire a lot of root beers so whatever, a tiger works as well as a whale does, maybe more so.

they use no preservatives, which seems to be more common lately. i don’t know if there is a backlash against preservatives, but i can get behind that. i just have to remember to drink this stuff soon.

you can also earn prizes for collecting bottle caps! now that i really like. as someone who got a load of Bazooka Joe stuff with the comic inserts in the 80s as well as countless breakfast cereal promotions, i wondered why that sort of thing faded out so much. perhaps the shipping costs got prohibitive.

the taste of this one is good. there is a little bit of a brown cinnamon hint i feel like, but beyond that it is pretty much as expected. very large head which does not, thankfully, translate into an overcarbonated drink. not too creamy, but that is fine, some ice cream can add that aspect to it if needed. i prefer that sometimes really. it is smooth though. sweet too, the cane sugar works well on this one. it is good. if you live around there, get some, collect and save the bottle caps, get some tickets or t shirts or whatever. and visit the tigers, they sound like fun.
Ingredients:filtered carbonated water, cane sugar, natural flavors and citric acid

Anthony’s Rating: 84
User’s Rating: 1
# of ratings:1
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Point Premium Diet Root Beer

so, fresh off reviewing a very excellent diet soda, my hopes and expectations for diet soda is raised up. they can be good! Point pulled off a pretty tasty regular root beer so can they come through with a solid diet version? i sure hope so. they also seem to have moved to the long, skinnier bottles in the intervening several years since i had the regular root beer. whatever, doesn’t matter to me really except that i will probably have to display them on different shelves if i ever get a root beer room in some future house. the packaging otherwise is good, full wrap label again, olde tyme photos and some pointy headed fellow on the back. fine, fine.

hhhmmm, not bad. yeah, it has the aftertaste, but less than most do. yeah, it has a little bit of a harsh, bitter flavor for a moment but it passes quickly. weird. this one is not good in the grand scheme of all drinks, but in the diet world it is solid. the vanilla is very much there which is a good thing. i also get a good level of sweetness, not as much as in some diets, but fine. perhaps sucrolose is the way to go for avoiding the aftertaste as much as possible. but who knows what else any sweetener does to your systems? not me that is for sure. well carbonated. almost creamy if not for that slight bitter tinge. it would do in a pinch if i had to do diet.
Ingredients:carbonated water, caramel color, natural and artificial flavor, phosphoric acid, acesulfame potassium, sodium benzoate (protects freshness), sucralose, vanilla

Anthony’s Rating: 66
User’s Rating: 1
# of ratings:1
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1919 Root Beer

ah, review number 500! whoa! fifteen (15) years plus since i started this site and added it to the many pages i was doing at the time. at the time i don’t think i expected this would be the one that would last. although, logically my zine was bound to die out eventually even if i never sold out myself. as was my record label. and “anthony’s most annoying of the web” seemed unnecessary after a bit, so many sites were annoying.

this is a soda i have been hearing about for years and years. it is a draft only soda that is carried at many restaurants and other eateries in the midwest. that is a very unique thing. i can’t say i know of any others in fact. some breweries sell kegs in addition to their bottled offering or else just offer the soda on draft at their locations, but 1919 is not unique to one chain or place. but i live no where near Minnesota or any of the places they served 1919 so it was just on my “wishlist” for a long time. one day though i got an email from a reader telling me that 1919 was selling pony kegs for home consumption! i immediately emailed them and got pricing info. being as it is a 5 liter can/keg, it is quite heavy so it is also costly to buy and even more so to ship. thus i put off the purchase. paying more than $20 for a single new soda is a bit much, even if it is a LOT of that single soda. then i realized review #500 was coming so i emailed them again more recently as i couldn’t find my old email and i figured costs probably changed in the intervening 5 or 7 or whatever years. i explained why i was ordering too, so they might be as excited as me. they responded by offering to send me a pony keg for reviewing! for free! whoa!! and they know how to ship this stuff. sent out on a Monday so it would not sit anywhere too long, packed with inches of foam and disposable ice packs all around it since it has no preservatives, it arrived very safe and sound and went right in my fridge
sweet to perfection. creaminess is just right. endnote of herbs which fades to a smooth vanilla mouth feel and a very happy anthony. this is for sure worth the wait and fully deserving of being review number 500! posting on my birthday too, nice! funny, i did not plan it that way at all. anyway… i envy the people who can get this easily at their local eatery or even bar. i might go to a bar if i could have a flagon of this fine beverage. what else to say about this? the head is marvelous, long lasting and majestic.
i wrote a lot more a couple months ago when i reviewed this but for some reason it got lost so i will try to update more soon.
Anthony’s Rating: 98
User’s Rating: 80
# of ratings:5
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