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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.

A-Treat Diet Root Beer

as with most diet sodas, you take a sip and think it is not so bad, perhaps THIS is the diet soda that breaks the trend of awful diet sodas. and then it hits you, the terrible aftertaste. then it is all ruined and you dread the next sip because you know what will happen. way too much carbonation also, i am all burpy now! tee hee. i think my stomach is unhappy with my decision to give another diet soda a chance also. it tastes remotely like root beer if that is any consolation.
Anthony’s Rating: 15
User’s Rating: 45
# of ratings:5
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Adirondack Waist Watcher Diet Root Beer

ok, so i have had this for like 3 years in my refrigerator and just noticed it. i am a bit wary to drink it, but i shall, for you, my loyal readers. ok, it sucks. very high carbonation, which seems to be the case often for diet sodas. probably in a futile attempt to mask the awful diet sweetener taste. have i mentioned that i hate diet sodas lately? cuz i do. especially root beers. they taste nothing like root beer. this one especially. it is more of a very fizzy seltzer with a very faint root beer hint. whatever, i am dumping the rest of this out.
Ingredients:crystal clear carbonated water, caramel color, potassium benzoate (preservative), citric acid, sucralose, acesulfame potassium, and natural and artificial flavor

Anthony’s Rating: 15
User’s Rating: 49
# of ratings:13
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After The Fall All Natural Diet Root Beer Spritzer

alright, so i got a 6 pack of this stuff when i was visiting people in Atlanta. it was at one of those natural grocery stores. i tried a couple of cans there but brought a couple home to try too. why, i do not know. especially now when i try it again. this is SO bad. granted it has no artificial sweeteners which is a plus. which means no cancer or brain tumor or liver damage risk i guess. but it tastes just like this medicine i used to have to have to take as a child to control my coughing from the asthma. the after taste is actually decent. it is that initial kick that stinks up the joint. it does sort of taste like some tropical fruit gone wrong.
Anthony’s Rating: 11
User’s Rating: 36
# of ratings:16
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After The Fall All Natural Diet Rootbeer

when i got this i had forgotten about the spritzer thing, probably since the packaging is so different. when i got home i was not sure if they had just renamed and remarketed the “spritzer” as just simply a diet soda. but when i try this, i know it is different. granted it is still awful but it is an intensified version of the awfulness that is the spritzer. what is root beer-like about either of these i do not know. or who the foolrod was who decided that this was what to put out into the market. it is a bitter, almost metal tasting mess. i will now dump the rest in the sink, after clearing it of anything it might splash on and taint forever.
Anthony’s Rating: 7
User’s Rating: 30
# of ratings:4
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America’s Choice Diet Root Beer

i don’t much like to review store brand sodas. i don’t much like diet root beers. ergo when the two come together in a diet store brand root beer, i sort of dread it. alas. so this is the store brand for A&P and also Pathmark, maybe others? i don’t know. Pathmark used to have their own line of soda. granted they were pretty terrible, yet there are not a lot of store brand birch beers out there. it could be that A&P and Pathmark merged at some point and i am unaware of it of course. ah, ok, so yeah they did and now i am aware of it. interesting.
the drink at hand is better than i thought but still not good. really it does not taste like a lot, rather like the regular root beer i reviewed years back. it is sharply carbonated at first which fades into a metallic diet soda ick. i don’t feel sick yet, so that is a plus. i am not sure why most diet sodas make me feel ill in the belly, but they do. oh wait, i feel it, a little nausea taking over. oh well. plus the graphic design is pretty awful. granted it is a generic root beer, but i would think you could try a little more. the sort of retro-future root beer mug with bubbles is not so bad but otherwise it fails all tests. even that they have to put “carbonated beverage” on it makes me concerned. who does not know that soda is carbonated? or that this is a beverage and not a weed killer or something? guess you have to cover your bases against law suits or something…
Ingredients:carbonated water, caramel color, aspertame, potassium benzoate (a preservative), citric acid, natural and artificial flavor, gum acacia, acesulfame potassium.

Anthony’s Rating: 36
User’s Rating: 85
# of ratings:1
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Berghoff Diet Rootbeer

ah, so i see Clover Club has taken over bottling Berghoff from a little note on the bottlecap! that solves the mystery of how the brand kept going after the restaurant seemed to get rid of the soft drink side of the business. interesting indeed. i am not quite sure that a diet version of this existed prior to that divestiture actually. i was quite surprised to see it for sale when i ordered it, but i try not to pay too much attention to the goings on in the diet world so maybe i just blocked it out. or forgot, which is more likely as my memory seems to be going more and more as age takes a hold of me.
strange i always though the brand was “Berghoff’s” but no, it is just “Berghoff” with no possessive. interesting indeed. i recall the first time i got the regular Berghoff, it was my first business trip ever. the car we got was in the other guy’s name and all so i was basically stuck after dinner at the hotel off a highway in a suburb of Chicago. i decided to go for a walk, see what there was. i found a gas station/convenience store and a 32 oz bottle of Berghoff! woot! i carefully wrapped it up and hoped it survived the plane trip home so i could properly photograph and review it. it did. but this one i just mail ordered, much easier.
i quite like their graphic design, very classic and classy and a little circus-y but in a good way. stripes and unfurling banners and metallic copper ink and so on.
hhhmmm it smells good… and it does not taste horrible actually. i only get a little of that metal diet aftertaste. wow, that seems like such an achievement for a diet soda, which is sad. it does not actually taste like root beer in the usually sense or even in an alternate, unique take on the old stand by sense. it tastes like a diet soda without the diet aftertaste. that is a step up but still it is harsh and bitter. if you are inclined, give it a shot. or find something better. your call.
Ingredients:carbonated water, caramel color, potassium benzoate, aspertame (nutrasweet brand), artifical (sic) and natural flavors, malic acid

Anthony’s Rating: 41
User’s Rating: 80
# of ratings:1
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Black Bear Diet Root Beer

the same woeful graphic design graces this bottle as on the regular root beer except they added “Diet” and the Splenda ™ logo. oh well, whatever. after trying that soda, i don’t have too high hopes for this. not that i would ever have high hopes for a diet soda anyway of course, but they were at the normal diet soda levels and not hoping for more because the fully sugared version was good. got it? good.
so this is another vexing diet beverage. it smells ok. first taste is ok but then it fades to grossness and flagpole licking-ness. BUT not as much as some diet sodas!! woo hoo!! it only tastes KIND OF like metal shavings! and my stomach only SORT of aches after three swallows. wow, alert the media! the most alarming thing is that it does indeed vaguely taste like root beer too! whoa, as Joey from Blossom once said. but only vaguely mind you. one day i will find a diet root beer that truly tastes like root beer. i am not sure why that is so impossible. but then again, i know next to nothing about food science.
Ingredients:filtered carbonated water, citric acid, gum acacia, artificial flavor and color, sucrolose, acesulfame k, sodium benzoate as a preservative

Anthony’s Rating: 44
User’s Rating: 51
# of ratings:2
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Bobby Boy’s Barrel Diet Root Beer

the first thing that surprised me about this drink is the color scheme chosen. usually, when there is a diet and a full calorie version of a root beer, the full calorie one is the one that has brown as traditional main, primary color and the diet version has some other color, usually something lighter or more subdued. perhaps this is supposed to make one thing of the lighter caloric content of the diet soda. “hey, Mildred, this bottle right here has a white label, it must be lower in calories than that there brown labelled one! i am gonna get me some of this here DIET bev-er-age!” but those ingenious folks at Bobby Boy’s Barrel has reversed that and made the diet soda have the brown label and the full calorie one have the blue label! whoa! the world is on its side, swine are a flying! or not. whatever.
on first taste, i thought “hey, not bad, very syrupy sweet but not a lot of aftertaste. oh wait, there it is. but still not terrible.” yeah. especially for aspertame, they have somehow made it not be awful. like before them, they have an aspertame product that is alright. and for something with no calories, actually pretty tasty. there is a root beer taste in there, under a lot of sweetness. nonetheless it is there and not so bad. interesting Bobby Boy, very interesting. i don’t think it is quite as good as that one, but it is much better than the other 60 or so diet sodas i have had over the years, which is definitely saying something. i am also not getting the tummy ache i always get with diet sodas so that is another plus here. fine job, Michigan soda maker! i don’t know how you did it, but it does not matter much. unless you are lying about the whole “diet” thing and this has sugar or something.
Ingredients:filtered carbonated water, aspertame, caramel color, vanilla, natural flavors, potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate (a preservative, and citric acid.

Anthony’s Rating: 66
User’s Rating: 0
# of ratings:0
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Boylan’s Diet Root Beer

i am wary of this stuff. on the one hand, it is Boylan’s, who have made some amazing sodas. but on the other hand, it is diet. back on that first hand the bottle says “Best Body” on it for no reason. on that second hand again, Boylan’s has made some not so great sodas too.
i notice too that Boylan’s seems to have become Boylan Bottleworks now, the possessive “‘s” is gone from the label entirely. and they love citric acid so much they listed it twice in the ingredients. curious…
alright, let us see…. smells ok… taste is not awful, OH no wait, it is! yup, it hits you later of course. gross diet soda taste that waits in a tree and springs on you when you let your guard down and forever wrecks your taste buds. or at least for a half hour. i just don’t get it, if the diet sweeteners are so chemically similar to sugar, why do they taste so vile? granted they are sweet but in a different way. and why oh why do i always get a stomach ache from them?
i am sorry to say that this does not really even taste like root beer much at all. very faintly, yes. like if you maybe let a few drops of root beer dry on a piece of aluminum foil and then chewed on it, you get that metallic taste with a hint of root beer.
wow, i can’t even finish this at all. or even make it past the neck level. excuse me i have to go cleanse my palette. and find some Natural Boylan’s Root Beer to remember what they do right.
Ingredients:carbonated water, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, natural yucca extract, citric acid, citric acid, sodium benzoate (preserves freshness), sucralose, acesulfame potassium

Anthony’s Rating: 18
User’s Rating: 51
# of ratings:6
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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.
Ingredients:can’t really read it

Anthony’s Rating: 62
User’s Rating: 0
# of ratings:0
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