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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.

Chuck Wagon Birch Beer

and now it is time for the sampling of the birch beer! hooray! i do so enjoy a good red birch i must admit. probably not as much as a good clear birch, but still a very good amount. i hope this one lives up to the other sodas in their line which i have tried so far.
hhhhmmm, i do like it OK but it does fall a little short. the flavor has a hint of wintergreen but otherwise i don’t taste a lot here. it may be another case of the crazy amount of carbonation hiding the actual flavor of the beverage though. plus there is something weird about the taste that is there and an after taste, like it has an artificial sweetener. let me see… oh crap, there it is: sucralose! i assumed this had sugar like the other two varieties i have sampled. so i suppose this is a diet beverage. there is no nutrition information anywhere though to confirm calorie or carbohydrate content. isn’t that illegal or something? curious… well, anyway if it IS indeed a diet drink, it is not bad. but if it is not, it is just OK. i would think they would label it as diet if it was, or maybe they think it stacks up with full sugar brands of birch beer. it does not so much but is a valiant effort nonetheless.
i am a bit sad, i thought this would be the best yet in the Chuck Wagon line. alas.
i just can’t get past that aftertaste, it wrecks it for me. i take a swig, it is decent and then i type a little bit and the aftertaste kicks in and i go “bleeeeh” and people look at me funny and i pretend nothing happened.
Anthony’s Rating: 67
User’s Rating: 1
# of ratings:2
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Cooper’s Cave Ale Company Birch Beer

ah, the birch beer now! i am quite thirsty and in need of a good beverage, i just rode my bike inside for a good long time, and hard too. so will it satisfy? hopefully. smells good, that is for sure. well, it is decent. a bit bland, i search for the flavor. that could be a worse thing but the flavor that is present is rather good. sweet and slightly wintergreen but not so much that you wintergreen haters will be all up in arms. but i still would pick other clear birch beers before this one. i do like that it is not too heavily carbonated though. sometimes you just don’t want tons of bubbles, you know?
Anthony’s Rating: 75
User’s Rating: 74
# of ratings:10
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Crystal Club Birchola

i am not sure what kind of soda this really is. Birchola i guess. some hybrid of birch beer and cola? perhaps it is their attempt at a new soda flavor entirely, something no one else has. who knows… it sorta does taste like that and is pretty decent. no caffeine which is good. got a little kick to it also. sweet, commercial root beer-ish with a taste of cola. decent.
Anthony’s Rating: 55
User’s Rating: 86
# of ratings:43
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Eddie Bob’s Birch Beer

i got this at a jazz festival in Princeton, so perhaps the stuff in the actual restuarnt is different. i sure hope so cuz this was lame. SO watery and just no taste to it really at all. well, barely. seemed ok besides that lack though. little minty tinge which is nice.
Anthony’s Rating: 36
User’s Rating: 53
# of ratings:11
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Foodtown Birch Beer

yet another store brand soda… wait though it is really good! i love minty birch beers and this is quite minty. my girlfriend had a slightly minty birch beer (Pennsylvania Dutch brown) a coupel days ago since there was a 2 liter bottle in the fridge and started yelping about how it is like a wint-o-green or something, so i had her try this but she thinks it tastes like nothing. oh well. i enjoy it. or i did for the first 1/2 of the can, now it is sort of losing its taste. i would say this is more of a “gulping” birch beer since when i just drink it slowly, it gets flavor-less. and there it loses points.
Anthony’s Rating: 69
User’s Rating: 56
# of ratings:8
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Foodtown Old Fashioned Birch Beer

this was a pleasant surprise. well maybe i should not say that until i taste it, but i mean the finding of it was a pleasant surprise. i was trying to track down a bottle of the Old Fashioned Root Beer to complete a trade with someone and came upon this one, which i had not seen before. actually they had pretty much every flavor except root beer. alas. i will have to keep looking. although by the time this post publishes, in 6+ months from when i am writing it, i will hopefully have found some more anyway. digression complete, resume loosely tied together ramble.
i still do not know if this is actually a different product than their canned and plastic bottled soda, but for the sake of padding my number of reviews, i will assume it is. i do love the old style labels. i feel like i recall when that logo and style was the norm in use by Foodtown stores but i could just be making that up in my head, as i do with many things in life. i think it replaces the actual things that happened so at least i have some memories in there.
in general i like clear or white birch beers a lot. the usual wintergreen taste is an interesting and highly enjoyable thing. but this one is just not up to snuff. it is alright but mostly just tastes like slightly flavored, slightly carbonated sugar water. i don’t get a real sense of much flavor. a hint of the wintergreen i speak of is there but not too much of it. it is quite sweet though which is fine, not too much. the carbonation is pretty low but i feel like the bubbles are a smaller variety as they seem more sharp but i have no idea if smaller bubbles would cause a sharp mouth feel, it just makes sense to me.
so i am kind of disappointed in this in the end. it is ok but not so worth seeking out. there are lots of better birch beers in the Foodtown territory and Foodtown may even stock them, so not too much point in getting this one.
Ingredients:carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, natural and artificial flavors, citric acid and sodium benzoate (preservative)

Anthony’s Rating: 62
User’s Rating: 0
# of ratings:0
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Forest Park Birch Beer

i am assuming this is another vanity labeled product, much like Private Label or Clearwater. this one though seems to be made with better ingredients including real cane sugar, anise, clove, sweet birch, wintergreen & vanilla. you can taste them all too which makes for a quite tasty brew. the wintergreen is not overwhelming either, none of it is really, just adding a little piece to the overall taste. the anise / wintergreen combination is an interesting one that works alright but might be pushing it a bit. interesting and pretty tasty, but not exactly what my taste buds prefer most of all. although a birch beer that is creamy is interesting. yummy.
Ingredients:carbonated spring water, pure cane sugar, natural flavors and oils (including anise, clove, sweet birch, wintergreen), vanilla and benzoate of soda

Anthony’s Rating: 86
User’s Rating: 84
# of ratings:81
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Foxon Park White Birch Beer

i also got this soda in that mixed case i spoke of above. actually when i arrived at the factory and went in the store, no one came out, so i just assumed i could do what i did, that is make my own order up. turned out i could and they were happy i did. this soda also has a more subtle taste. but it works for a birch beer much more to me. there seems to be a pretty prominent wintergreen taste here. it makes for an almost medicinal flavor upon first sip or if you put it down for a minute and let your palette clear. this is more than fine with me as i very much love wintergreen as a flavor. this is definitely one of the best white birches i have ever had. it is refreshing and smooth but with that minty kick that makes me enjoy a white birch so much. solid carbonation that last through the whole bottle too.
Ingredients:carbonated water, sugar, natural and artificial flavor, sodium benzoate (preservative)

Anthony’s Rating: 87
User’s Rating: 88
# of ratings:36
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Frozen Run Black Bear Mountain Birch Beer

although the flavor is not too strong, this birch beer is very tasty with that hint of wintergreen that i just love. lots of carbonation but a very small head. i’d say this is among the best clear birch beers around today. better than that junk snapple claims as clear root beer indeed.
Ingredients:filtered carbonated water, corn sweetener, artificial flavor, citric acid, and preserved with sodium benzoate.

Anthony’s Rating: 81
User’s Rating: 88
# of ratings:335
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Hank’s Premium Philadelphia Birch Beer

wow, also a very fine beverage. strangely i see Hank’s Root Beer all over the place, but i have only seen this birch beer in 2 places in Wilkes Barre. odd indeed. oh well. it is a red birch, but it is minty which is a little bit weird since it is usually the clear birch beers that are minty. quite a bit of fizzy to it, but still a little bit of a creamy undertone, behind the fizz and the minty-ness. actually i think i like this a tad more than their root beer. definitely get it if you can find it. maybe try and mail order it even.
Anthony’s Rating: 91
User’s Rating: 76
# of ratings:51
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