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Hello and welcome to the oldest, largest and frankly the best root beer reviewing site in the world! over 625 brands reviewed so far! i also throw in birch beer and sarsaparilla reviews occasionally while i am at it since to me, they are the same genre. 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 review publishes every week on Monday with the random post or review of root beer related stuff every once in a while. 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. make a float, tap a keg or mix some extract up and enjoy!

anthony (me) started reviewing root beer related drinks in '96 but has always loved the delicious joy of root beer and birch beer and just kept it going ever since. if you have any suggestions of features you'd like to see or sodas you want reviewed, let me know!

Nokian Sun’n Root Beer

now this right here is a special treat, a rare thing, a unicorn if you will! i mean, it is not an american root beer, which is rare enough, but it is from Finland! i know! WHAT?! crazy, right? only the root beer tracker himself, Sagi, could have found this one. honestly i don't even know what the ingredients are here. most non-American root beers I have had have actually been quite awful, but they were British or Filipino where tastes are kinda of different. yet i have faith in this one, Finland must do things right. right?
um, yeah, they actually did do this right! wow, this is good. huh. I am rather shocked and surprised here. this is one of the best root beers in a can I have had! it is a really good balance of herbs to start, a little bit sweet tea-like with extra sarsaparilla which then becomes a really smooth, sweet flavor to end which stays with you. i am impressed! if it were not like $10 a can to get, i would be tempted to get more. and I don't really do that too much. it is rather different and unique. the taste is lighter than your usual root beer, i like that. not that i don't like a hearty, solid root beer, but this is something you could drink and feel refreshed. or enjoy with a meal. or just by itself. very good work Nokian people!

Anthony's Rating: 95
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Marco Sodas Birch Beer

yet again, the mighty and kind gourmet doctor sent me a new soda. this one he is too mighty to review himself as it is not in his bally-wick. but luckily for me (or maybe not, we will see) it is indeed in my wheelhouse so i will give it the once over and pass that info on to you. i have low expectations here as the spruce beer that they make is completely vile. but spruce beer is a tricky thing, birch beer should be easier to get right. right?
i sniff the aroma as i pop the top and my hopes sink even lower. it smells pretty yeasty. which was the problem with the spruce beer as well. ok, well maybe it isn't too bad. nope, it sure is. it starts off ok, but the end and aftertaste is all yeast and grossness. that beginning taste is ok. good sweetness, nice carbonation. but in a split second that is all gone and nothing good remains. i wish i had good things to say about this. yet i do not. avoid this drink and be happier.
Ingredients:carbonated water, cane sugar, citric acid, natural essence (birch, yeast), potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate

Anthony's Rating: 31
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Johnny Reb Root Beer

one day this soda appeared for sale on amazon. the gourmet one messaged me to ask if i had had it. I had not but planned to order some as soon as I could. soon after I talked to the tracker and asked him about it. he also had never heard of it, but immediately ordered it, as that is what he does. and then he shares it with the rest of us because his heart is golden. i have my suspicions that this is not at all a unique soda but the company seems rather secretive and standoffish so i really couldn't find much out.
this may get bad consumer feedback from the name, but some people stick to the past or whatever they think the past was so those people may enjoy this just because of that. whatever you want to think about it, i am impartial, i just review the stuff inside the bottle really. i do think they could have done better on the fonts and such but whatever, this is what they did.
so i may have gotten a bum bottle as there is very very low carbonation. there was no hiss of released gas when i twisted off the top, no foam, no froth. not a particularly good taste either. well, it isn't bad so much as just 'eh.' i can tell it is root beer but just like they really didn't try. maybe they threw a little of the most generic root beer extract, barely carbonated it and tried to cash in on MAGA lovers all over. i was hoping this would be good, maybe some sort of actual effort and showing the soda world what the south can do, a rebel if you will. but it is not, it is just a conformer of the worst kind beneath the rebel outer layer.
Ingredients:carbonated water, sugar, caramel color, artificial and natural flavors, citric acid, gum acacia, preserved with sodium benzoate.

Anthony's Rating: 59
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Marco Sodas Spruce Beer

it has been quite a while since I reviewed a spruce beer! wow. this one comes, very kindly, from the gourmet one himself. as he does not cover this segment of 'root' beers, i am happy to do so.
as root beer is traditionally an american beverage, I often read about how people from other lands think it tastes like tooth paste or some other such gross thing. there are videos of people trying it for the first time and the like out there. but then again, there are videos of pretty much everything out there so that is not saying much in the end. my point here is that spruce beer is a uniquely canadian thing it seems so people accustomed to root beer often think this smells and tastes like furniture spray. usually i can sort of see that complaint but don't really agree with it. and yes, who has not gotten some Pledge in their mouth or nose when spraying stuff, ok?! in this case though, yeah, this totally tastes and smells like Pledge. carbonated Pledge but still… it seems a fine line between being yummy and being kind of gross. this treads right on that line. some sips I am like 'yeah, no, this is just cleaning product, ick!' but then others i'm like 'well, i do like lemon with herbal stuff in it, maybe it is not so bad.' i kind of tastes like lemongrass dishes, which i am not too fond of really. it is not the crisp lemon of like sprite or something. it is much more herbal and deep. i am not saying i hate it but it really isn't my favorite thing in the world
Ingredients:carbonated water, cane sugar, citric acid, natural essence (spruce, yeast), potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate

Anthony's Rating: 37
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