welcome to anthony's root beer barrel! here anthony reviews root beers, birch beers & sarsaparillas, randomly rambles about the topic and probably some more stuff. so check it all out, feel free to comment on reviews or rate brews yourself.


 

 

Reading Draft White Birch Beer

September 29, 2008
Filed under: birch beers — anthony @ 8:13 am
Type: White Birch Beer Comes In: 12oz glass bottle
Available: PA Obtained in: sent by reader
Head: Small Sweetener: cane sugar
Caffeine: No
Website: http://www.readingdraft.com/

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.

Ingredients: triple filtered carbinated water, pure cane sugar, natural and/or artificial flavors, citric acid, sodium benzoate (preserves freshness)

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

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Vitalon Salty Sarsaparilla

September 18, 2008
Filed under: sarsaparillas — anthony @ 5:50 pm
Type: Sarsaparilla Comes In: 12 oz can
Available: NJ Obtained in: Asian Food store in NJ
Head: Tiny Sweetener: sugar, fructose
Calories: 153 Sodium: 53mg
Carbs: 55g Sugar: g
Caffeine: No

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…

Ingredients: water, sugar, fructose, malic acid, carbon dioxide, flavour, citric acid, sodium citrate, carsmel, glycine, salt

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

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root beer vodka

September 12, 2008
Filed under: random junk — anthony @ 5:34 pm

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

September 9, 2008
Filed under: root beers — anthony @ 6:03 pm
Type: Root Beer Comes In: 12 oz can
Available: AL, GA, NC, SC, TN, VA Obtained in: at an Ingles Market in NC
Head: Small Sweetener: high fructose corn syrup
Calories: 200 Sodium: 30mg
Carbs: 49g Sugar: 48g
Caffeine: No
Website: http://www.ingles-markets.com/

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.

Ingredients: carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, carmel color, natural and artificial flavors, sodium benzoate and citric acid

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

enter YOUR rating (1-100 1=worst 100=best) for Laura Lynn Root Beer:

 
 

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