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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.

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:340
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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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Hosmer Mountain Birch Beer

clear birch beer, rockin! about what i expected from it too. which is pretty good as i expected a slightly wintergreen birch beer. sadly though, the wintergreen is a little TOO slight for my tastes, leaving it with not much other taste. just becomes slightly sweetened water to me by the end. which is kind of unfortunate as i had high hopes for this. oh well, can’t win em all.
Anthony’s Rating: 69
User’s Rating: 82
# of ratings:19
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Journey Beverage Co Birch Beer

so i am not sure if this replaces the vile and awful Borealis Birch since i have not seen that atrocity on store shelves in a long while or if it is yet another addition to the growing and disappearing line of Journey drinks. actually besides this and the root beer, i no longer see any other Journey beverages these days. for some of them, that is a shame as they seemed to be getting some stuff right, for others, it is a reason to rejoice.
so let me pop this one open and try it! wow, that taste like anise! that is not usually a direction that birch beers take, strange. i would actually be hard pressed to find any birch flavor here at all. i don’t hate the drink but i don’t terribly love liquorice. right now, i am kind of in the mood for some so this is good but other times i am sure i would really not be into it. if you like black liquorice, this is the drink for you. i find it weird that they can’t list just what “cane sweeteners” are in here. although, are there any sweeteners beside sugar that come in the form of a cane? i don’t know of any but i am not a sweetener-ologist at all. and just where does the fructose come from? curious, very curious Journey. well, you have put out a good beverage with very nice packaging, so keep it up.
Anthony’s Rating: 81
User’s Rating: 66
# of ratings:4
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Journey Beverage Co Borealis Birch Beer

this is probably the worst beverage i have ever drank and i have drank some nasty stuff in my time. tastes like a jar of potporri was accidently spilled into an ok birch beer and they decided to leave it there. i can find nothing good to say about this other than that the label is pretty nice looking. do not fall for the deception though! inside lurks something bad.
Ingredients:sparkling purified water, natural sweetener blend (unrefined cane sugar, fructose, tree-tapped Alaskan birch syrup), herb and spice brew (water, birch bark, roasted chicory, juniper berries, other herbs and spices), phosphoric acid, natural flavors

Anthony’s Rating: 8
User’s Rating: 55
# of ratings:89
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Kutztown Red Birch Beer

another solid soda from Kutztown. this is a red birch which for some reason, i enjoy more than brown ones but a little less than clear ones. usually as least. the head seems to get bigger and longer laster the more i drink which is sort of strange. i think some people will find this too sweet but i do not. in fact, i can’t really tell it has cane sugar instead of regular sugar, that distinct cane sugar taste just is not here. oh well. so much the better really.
Ingredients:triple-filtered carbonated water, pure cane sugar, caramel color, natural and artificial flavor, citric acid, sodium benzoate (a preservative), yucca extracts and acacia

Anthony’s Rating: 93
User’s Rating: 83
# of ratings:40
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Kutztown White Birch Beer

i am fairly sure this is the same as the Kutztown Red Birch but without the coloring. the ingredient list even is exactly the same, including the caramel color even, which is obviously not in this one really. i think this because i read it somewhere on the internet tubes and if that stuff is not all factual then i am a monkey’s uncle. actually it is on the Kutztown website itself, strange. as i had that belief, i did not rush to order this but as i am running out of sodas to review now, i have to resort to getting this sort of thing. whatever, don’t judge, you go find 520 sodas and get back to me.
but you know what? this tastes different than the red birch to me. i got some of the red also when i got the white and this one is definitely a little more watered down and bit more minty. i do like the wintergreen mintiness, but the rest of the flavor being lacking and weak makes me mark this lower than i would have hoped. white birches are usually very solid drinks and this one is decent but not quite good enough.
Ingredients:triple-filtered carbonated water, pure cane sugar, caramel color, natural and artificial flavor, citric acid, sodium benzoate (a preservative), yucca extractives and acacia

Anthony’s Rating: 81
User’s Rating: 70
# of ratings:1
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Market Basket Birch Beer

a clear birch beer in a can? interesting indeed. not to say it is actually very good though. if anything it is rather dull and watery. a touch of birch flavor but not in that good way that some other people do it so that it comes off as refrshing. no, here it is more just cheap tasting. perhaps because it was cheap in price, but i have had many a cheap soda that was tasty. alas fair readers, i say alas! this company is mysterios, i mean what self respcting company has no website in 2004?! weird. maybe it is poison i am injesting here. i hope not, i have a race in the morning i’d like to do.
Anthony’s Rating: 43
User’s Rating: 66
# of ratings:5
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McCutcheon’s Birch Beer

there are very few companies out there that make a birch beer and not a root beer. sadly the birch beers seem to be an afterthought, something to try after they make a root beer they are satisfied with. Boylans of course had their 2 birches out well before their root beers made the scene. Briars i think was the same. and there are a couple of PA brands (PA Dutch, that Bear one, etc) that only make birches. but none that due it just in glass bottles and none from Maryland. oh wait, there are the 2 Real Soda in Real Bottles birches, so i guess there is another company in California. i don’t see any mention of this soda on the McCutcheon website though so hopefully it is still made.
i like that they proudly proclaim on the label that there are no Corn Sweeteners or Caffeine in here, as someone who avoids both of those things. very nice McCutcheon’s! thanks. i think i got a slightly bad bottle or else i just waited too long to open it as the carbonation level is rather low. not totally absent but lower than i would think it should be. maybe i can order more sometime to be sure.
i am liking this stuff. it reminds me more of a usual red birch than a brown one as the wintergreen taste is there along with the sweetness and somewhat herbal taste i associate with brown birches. i think in my head there is some scale with wintergreen-ness on the left and sweet herbal flavor on the right. white birches are all the way left, brown birches on the right and red ones in between. blue and pink ones i think would be between white and red. something like this:

  white birch          red birch              brown birch
 \/                          \/                               \/
  |------------------------------------------------------------|
  wintergreen                                             herbal

this one would fall in the middle, a little to the left side. there is a bit of wintergreen in there. it is quite a good birch beer in fact. the cane sugar sweetness is just right. for me, i would like a bit more wintergreen yet this is definitely one of the best brown birches i have had. it is definitely NOT a root beer, as it should be.
i am curious what makes this a “Premium Reserve Soda” as the label proclaims. good stuff.
Ingredients:triple filtered carbonated water, pure cane sugar, natural and/or artificial flavors, caramel color, citric acid, sodium benzoate (preserves freshness)

Anthony’s Rating: 92
User’s Rating: 67
# of ratings:5
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Mercury Brewing Company Birch Beer

well, if you have to explain that something is soda pop on the label i become slightly wary. the obtaining of this soda was quite a journey too as my friend roberta drove me to several stores which were supposed to carry it but only one had the birch beer and none had the root beer. oh well, next time i go to boston, which is next week anyhow! so anyway, this is not good at all. slightly bitter and that is about the only taste. i like the label and all but this is not a good soda. not offensively bad either, just a slightly more tasty seltzer. actually if you like that weirdo seltzer taste but toned down, you will like this as that is exactly what it tastes like.
Anthony’s Rating: 35
User’s Rating: 68
# of ratings:8
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