Old Town Root Beer Company Sarsparilla

alrighty then, i think this is the last of the Old Town offerings… but i may be wrong, actually i think i must be as i have not had anything diet and i believe they make one of those too. and there is another root beer, the ‘D-n-A’ one that i think i have yet to get to, so ignore what i wrote just now and carry on. nothing to see up there, move along…
i don’t think i have ever encountered this flavor of soda spelled this one, “sarsparilla.” mostly you get “sarsaparilla” or “sasparilla” but i don’t think i have ever seen this version. interesting. it works though.
so the label proclaims “Premium Vanilla Cream” which is a little weird to me, i suppose since i always think of sarsparillas as the more herbal, somewhat harsher sibling, and root beers as the more creamy, smooth one. Old Town seems to have turned that notion around, which is their prerogative of course. heck, if they want to change the spelling of the soda, they may as well go all out.
i do believe this is indeed NOT creamier than any of their root beer offerings, the vanilla flavor is less upfront but still present. it is not the overwhelming taste so that is a good thing really. overall this is not quite as good as the other two kinds i have sampled thus far, which is not saying a whole lot as those two were very good. this is also quite tasty in fact, just less so. to me. and that is who matters right here as i am writing this and it is my name on the site name and all. although you can of course rate it and leave comments telling me i am a nut job or whatever. so anyway, the flavor is solid, similar to the others it strides that boundry between the smooth vanilla taste, the more herbal and the sweet, falling a little more in the herbal camp, as i told you above a sarsparilla should.

Anthony’s Rating: 85
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in memorium…

the online root beer reviewing world is a pretty small place. i found that when i was contacted for my ‘Modern Marvels’ appearance a couple years ago, the producer and i both ran through the list of who else was out there. i have never physically met any one of these people in the meat space, but i feel almost like i know them in a way. i have traded emails if not sodas with almost all of them, especially the ones who have been around a few years.
just now i found out that we lost one last year. Luke Cole was killed in a car accident abroad in June of 2009. i always liked his site and found it very humorous that we both loved root beer and gigantic roadside characters. he always had root beers on his site that i had never heard of and will probably never have. his press releases of the best root beers of the year each year around 2002-2005 did make me a bit flustered, who was this guy to have a press release about root beer?! what qualifies him to decide this junk?! after 2006 or so he did not seem to update his site although i checked in every couple months or so to see, hoping he would have found more new sodas for me to then acquire somehow.
it is a shame that i really knew nothing of all of the great things he did outside of the root beer world. he was a lawyer, working for environmental justice, founder of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, and he seemed like an amazing person.
nope, i never knew you Luke, but i shall miss you.

Old Town Root Beer Company Root Beer 66

ok, this company has three (3? yes THREE!) root beers, just plain ole root beers. plus a diet one. plus a sarsaparilla. maybe more, who knows? i may have said this in the previous review of their stuff but i am still shocked (yes shocked!) by it.
now, there are/were three other root beers with a “Route 66″ theme to them. i don’t quite get the connection of root beer and this fabled highway beyond the fact that maybe they both were big in the 60s? or that the soda companies are trying to make a connection to car hops and drive ins and junk and Route 66 also does that. whatever.
i do enjoy the funny slogans they have on here that are Route 66 related though. “Get to the ROOT of Route 66″ (ok, that was is mediocre) and “Get Your SUGAR Fix on Route 66″ (that is funny, to me at least). so the label is ok. they get a C+ for graphic design, kinda dull but slightly funny. and no nutrition info. alas.
now, i think this one is actually better than the regular root beer! wow, i know. i think it is the cinnamon and vanilla. the flavor also changes with time but it is all good. it starts off a little sharp then the smooth vanilla and honey taste comes in with some cinnamon elements and stays with you for a moment before slowly fading into a fond memory. the honey is more of a backend taste too, barely making you really know about it, but present if you think about it. the taste is not harsh but more carbonated than i would have expected, from the level of foaming action. yes, i know they are unrelated really but in my head they are connected. i blame the corporate advertising machine. by the end i am feeling like it is a wee bit TOO syrupy. generally that does not bother me but today it is a little too much. nonetheless that is nitpicking, this soda is among the elites. if you live near by, consider yourself lucky and then stock up on this. support them.

Anthony’s Rating: 95
User’s Rating: 90
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Zevia Natural Root Beer

someone had written in to tell me about this soda a bit ago. the website indicated that it is available at King’s supermarkets here in the NJ area. so of course i promptly went to one the next chance i got and did not find it. so a couple months passed and i went to King’s for another reason and happened to browse the soda aisle, as i am wont to do, and lo and behold, Zevia! i think it is the most expensive canned soda i have ever had, a six pack was $5.99 or so. which is a good price for glass bottles but not for cans. oh well, all for the sake of the website, right?
i like the concept of stevia, which is what this soda is sweetened with, an all natural sweetener with no calories or teeth rotting capacity. yet most stuff i have had with it in it was just not so tasty. it still imparts a flavor like other non-caloric sweeteners, kind of metallic.
i also like to consume as much natural stuff as possible, kind of shocking and weird for a root beer reviewer to be otherwise largely organic, but i am a enigmatic riddle or something. nonetheless most all natural root beers are pretty terrible, with a couple of exceptions of course.
thus going into this, Zevia does not make me have high expectations for my pop consumption experience this afternoon. and that leads me to the fact that *SPOILER ALERT* this kinda stinks. *END SPOILER ALERT*
i am struggling to find something redeemable about the taste, yet from start to end it is terrible. it starts off harsh and sharp then gets rather bitter before retreating after the swallow to a slightly numb feeling in your mouth and on your tongue especially. it is the color of root beer, otherwise there is little to no resemblance to anything like root beer. i suppose one of the reasons i love root beer so much is that the flavor can vary so much and still fall under the “root beer” banner, but this is outside of that. it should not be admitted to the root beer club, we need a better bouncer at the door i think.
i appreciate their efforts, really i do. i am opposed to artificial sweeteners also. who knows what the long term effects are of super chlorinated sugar or other strange chemicals are? plus the more natural stuff is, the better it seems. but it has to taste at least ok. this does not… my drain will enjoy the other 5 cans of this six pack i am sure as i dump them down there. so $5.99 for a one pack…

Anthony’s Rating: 11
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Old Town Root Beer Company Root Beer

this company intrigues me. they are doing stuff i just did not think very possible. they started a root beer restaurant. not just that, they franchised it and have like 5 or so locations. and they still exist, at least when i write this, a couple years after starting. plus they have 5 of their own sodas, three root beers, a diet and a sarsaparilla. very interesting indeed.
and a very tasty soda too. intriguing also i must add. the taste is very varied, it changes completely from hitting the tongue until several seconds later. the start is a pretty regular root beer taste, but then it is a little sharp, lots of carbonation racing to get down your gullet first and scraping up the back of your mouth. as the bubbles pop and disappear it slowly fades into a rich and smooth vanilla taste. i like it. upon first taste, i loved it but as i drink more i think it is an excellent root beer but not quite an amazing one. they have set the bar high though for their other offerings, i hope they live up to expectations.

for a place that so prominently displays their website and junk, you would think they would be more prepared to handle mail order requests but it was a bit of a challenge to try to get some. plus they had no list of what sodas they had so they asked me to send them the list of what i had had. i did and the next time they called they were rather amused and said they don’t have anything else for me. oh well. so i traded with Jon to get some.
i also find it funny that the ingredients say “natural and OTHER flavors” (emphasis mine). ok, so it is other than natural, so it is artificial, right? i guess that is something they want to avoid on their labels though. oh well.

Anthony’s Rating: 90
User’s Rating: 93
# of ratings:3
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Diet A & W Root Beer

yes, that is right, i have been doing this thing for over 13 years and i have never reviewed Diet A & W! i am quite shocked myself. i believe a reader pointed it out a few months ago. i tried to rectify it then but i accidentally bought a six pack of A&W cream soda instead… oops. i quickly dumped it all down the drain and recycled the empties so that it would not corrupt anything else in my home. perhaps it was just my subconscious not wanting to subject me to another diet soda. although my love of root beer probably started with an A&W way back when, it was certainly not a diet one. well, on with it, best get it over with. hey, maybe it is good?
you know what? it actually is ok. well, for about 20 seconds until the aftertaste comes in to get you. wow, i am shocked, i fully expected this to be awful. it tastes like a generic, fully sugared root beer for that first little bit, fooling your mouth and innards. yet then it kicks your teeth, subtly mind you, with the metallic aftertaste. that initial taste is not amazing but what the normal “root beer” flavor is thought of to be, if there is such a thing. i guess it tastes like regular A & W if that helps you. hhhmm, interesting indeed.
on a sidenote, this is the 750th root beer i have added to my database, but about the 420th to be reviewed which means there are a ton out there i have not tried. granted i probably never WILL try 90% of those, but still, it gives me hope.

Anthony’s Rating: 50
User’s Rating: 52
# of ratings:5
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Brewbakers Diet Root Beer

ok, this is just freaky, i think it may be a diet soda that tastes ok!! granted it has sugar and honey and corn syrup in addition to the NutraSweet, but still it only has like 22 calories in a bottle. weird. it tastes like root beer! wow. and it only slightly tastes like metal after 45 seconds or so! and my stomach only hurts a little bit after drinking 1/2 the bottle.
now, to be clear, this is not a good root beer, it is an excellent DIET root beer though, probably the best i have had. i know that may not mean a lot to you as i dislike pretty much all of them, but if i suddenly had to severely limit my sugar intake i think i’d order some of this. i am scared by that thought though.
unlike the regular root beer from Brewbakers, this actually has nutrition info, although the label is about the same bad quality of a color photo copy. so it is not so easy to make out i can’t read the ingredients very well either. even worse in fact. they seem to run into the graphics background which is the same color as the ingredients font. on the website the labels look totally different so maybe they have improved this issue lately.

Anthony’s Rating: 62
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