oooo, a diet soda!! yeah, sarcasm is coming to a town near you, right about now, catch it while you can!!
let me get the good stuff out of the way first. i actually quite like the design on this and the regular root beer. for store brand soda, it is well done. a circus-like font for the name along with beige vertical stripes to increase the circus-ocity of it all. then, in the center, a tasty looking mug of what i assume is supposed to be root beer, frothy and overflowing, surrounded by a ring of hypno rays. so overall it looks like an advertisement for a side show freak or something. an unusual tact to take but hey, whatever works for you Save-A-Lot people. and like i said, i do like it much better than most store brand sodas. at least some thought and effort went into it.

onto the bad part. which is the soda itself. it is bad. not good. gross even. it tastes like i forgot to take the foil off of my sandwich for lunch and bit it anyway but got no sandwich, just foil. and carbonation. yeah, very carbonated aluminum foil, you know the stuff i am sure. so yeah, i don’t like this if you did not gather that. my mouth is not happy and my stomach even less happy. it hurts in fact.
so much for starting the 2nd 500 with a solid soda. since i did not actually write #500 when i am writing this, i sure hope that one was good.
Ingredients:carbonated water, caramel color, potassium benzoate (as a preservative), sucralose, natural and artificial flavors, citric acid and acesulfame potassium

Anthony’s Rating: 16
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so, fresh off reviewing a very excellent diet soda, my hopes and expectations for diet soda is raised up. they can be good! Point pulled off a pretty tasty regular root beer so can they come through with a solid diet version? i sure hope so. they also seem to have moved to the long, skinnier bottles in the intervening several years since i had the regular root beer. whatever, doesn’t matter to me really except that i will probably have to display them on different shelves if i ever get a root beer room in some future house. the packaging otherwise is good, full wrap label again, olde tyme photos and some pointy headed fellow on the back. fine, fine.

hhhmmm, not bad. yeah, it has the aftertaste, but less than most do. yeah, it has a little bit of a harsh, bitter flavor for a moment but it passes quickly. weird. this one is not good in the grand scheme of all drinks, but in the diet world it is solid. the vanilla is very much there which is a good thing. i also get a good level of sweetness, not as much as in some diets, but fine. perhaps sucrolose is the way to go for avoiding the aftertaste as much as possible. but who knows what else any sweetener does to your systems? not me that is for sure. well carbonated. almost creamy if not for that slight bitter tinge. it would do in a pinch if i had to do diet.
Ingredients:carbonated water, caramel color, natural and artificial flavor, phosphoric acid, acesulfame potassium, sodium benzoate (protects freshness), sucralose, vanilla

Anthony’s Rating: 66
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alright, a diet soda… i can do this. it might be good, right? Northwood’s other two drinks were quite tasty, so this could be awesome!

wow, this is sweet! i mean that in the “it is sugary sweet” way not in the “it is rad, awesome, sweet” sense. but for whatever reason it works and it pretty much blocks the artificial sweetener aftertaste. which makes no sense to me. the artificial sweetener is what causes the aftertaste, so why would adding more of it to make this sweeter decrease said aftertaste?

but i could mean it in the “rad, awesome, sweet” sense too actually. because it is a good diet drink! holy moly! i never thought it possible but this is good. better than a lot of sugared sodas. the best diet soda i have ever had. it must be something about the Wild Bill name since the only one close to this is the NJ Wild Bill’s. interesting…
i see these commercials for the new fangled diet colas and diet prune soda with the opposing delivery truck drivers or the easter bunny and Santa Claus and so on, all saying that their blech is as good as the non-diet version, but they really need to try this one. it tastes like root beer! a very very sweet one, but still… if you melted a root beer barrel candy or one of those candy stick things, it would taste a lot like this. which is good if you like sweet stuff. i am just astounded. it is not bad. weird. they say it is a “rare, smooth beverage” on this one too and this time they are right! very rare and quite smooth. whoa. job well done, Bill and family. you have taken the lead. anyone care to step up and challenge them?

Ingredients:carbonated water, natural & artificial flavor, phosphoric acid, sucralose, aceuflame potassium & sodium benzoate to preserve quality

Anthony’s Rating: 72
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so i saw the review of this soda on the Thirsty Dudes site, having never heard of the company at all before. i proceeded to leave a comment to that effect and bing, bang, boom, a day or so later i get an email from the company asking if i wanted to review it also! crazy how this internet deal works sometimes! i accepted, excited to perhaps get a diet soda that was naturally sweetened and thus might taste good. but also apprehensive as i have never likes things with stevia so far.
soon after that a six pack comes in the mail. cool. i pop a couple in the fridge and await the coldness to take hold.
and here i am, popping the top on the can. i kind of like the style here but i think it comes across as a very generic soda from 1972, with the fonts and overwhelmingly white background. i don’t think i would take it for a semi-premium beverage if i saw it on a shelf myself.
i wondered if this would be brown or clear before i read the ingredients and saw the caramel color. so yeah, brown soda.
ok, trying it…. wow, this is horrible. i read Thirsty Dudes review of this and had high expectations but even with low to mid expectations, it is just not good. the diet taste is all i can taste, there is no trace of root beer there at all. if blindfolding, i would have no clue what flavor this was supposed to be. it is harsh and bitter and angry at my taste buds for something they did a long time ago i think. maybe those grape jelly and lettuce sandwiches they enjoyed in the 80s finally caught up to them. i keep on sipping it to see if i am just missing the yum. or the ok-ness. but i did not. i think this is a little better than the Zevia but just barely. i really do want to like stevia sweetened stuff, but so far i don’t. a natural, no calorie sweetener would be amazing. i even stopped buying Stoneyfield 0 fat yogurt since they added stevia, they wrecked it. not that being natural makes something automatically safe and healthy and all but artificial sweeteners kind of scare me.
Ingredients:triple filtered carbonated water, caramel color, rebiana (natural sweetener), natural flavors, citric acid, gum acacia

Anthony’s Rating: 12
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so how will this be? every time i sample a new root beer i think that to myself. with the diet sodas it is more “ok, how bad could it be? maybe it will be good for once!” but i try not to get my hopes up too high. that is harder when i have tried the regular, full-on sugar version of a soda though. from that one i feel like i know that the company can or cannot make a good soda, so the diet is expected to follow along the same lines. sadly that does not always happen at all. well, not really “sadly” i suppose, more “unexpectedly” or “illogically” or “your assumption was dumb Anthony.”
i do somewhat doubt that Al Capone ever drank a diet soda, let alone had a secret recipe for one, but i will let that slide. as long as at least one drink in their soda line came from Mr. Capone or bore his name at some point, even if Geraldo did not find it on prime time TV, then they can go with it.
this actually is not so bad tasting. wow. i would never choose it over even a regular A&W or something mind you, but i am not getting sick feeling which is often the case. it even sort of tastes like root beer too! pretty creamy and very smooth with just a slight metal taste in the middle, not to start and not in the aftertaste, it just lasts for a moment and then is gone, like that cute guy you saw was on the bus this morning when you missed it.
Ingredients:carbonated water, caramel color, potassium benzoate, aspertame (NutraSweet brand), artificial and natural flavor and malic acid

Anthony’s Rating: 65
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yes indeed, another of my absolute favorite kinds of soda, diet store brands!! woo hoo! ok, turn the sarcasm down anthony ok random italicized voice, will do. no problem. not sure when he snuck in here from razzball though. wacky.
once again, this “Main Street” stuff seems to be the store brand of a whole bunch of different grocery stores, Stop & Shop, Giant and more. an interesting concept the graphic design is interesting. each flavor has a different color combination but all have this old time soda fountain worker looking guy trying to hand you a frosty glass of whatever soda you have chosen. in this case, it is a very heady brown soda. the fonts mainly go along with the 50s/60s car hop/soda fountain feel. so i guess that is pretty well done, especially for a store brand. why the birch beer glass had some orange looking soda in the glass i am not sure as it is a clear birch but perhaps it would be too hard to make the label clear or even just white. whatever.
this is not horrible. that is really saying something for a diet, store brand. it is not tasty though either. it just takes longer for the diet sweetener to spread metal all around my mouth and make my tummy ache. is that a good thing? relative to other diet sodas, yes i guess it is. relative to other drinks, no, it still is bad. i get a bit of root beer taste in there somewhere but it is behind a lot of sharp carbonation and some bitter kick, even before the dietness kicks in. i guess i could live with this being my generic soda if i was forced to only drink diet drinks. yet i doubt i would do that, it is not like i have a generic regular root beer now that i ever buy unless it is for review.
Ingredients:carbonated water, caramel color, aspertame, potassium benzoate (a preservative), natural and artificial flavor, citric acid

Anthony’s Rating: 32
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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
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so the Shoprite regular root beer was actually ok. does this bode well for the diet or is it just another case of the awful of being a diet drink shining through? i am going to guess the 2nd. it IS a store brand after all, they probably can’t do too much right. plus more recent tastings of the full-on sugar root beer have revealed it to be much worse than it was when i first tried it. alas. and alack too while i am at it.
can i say that i hate having to buy 2L of soda. especially when almost every other flavor comes in cans also. perhaps diet soda is consumed in much high quantities than just single cans and the 2L is the default single serving size? i don’t know. i doubt it. i hope not.
i worry about this drink since the preservative is higher in the ingredient list than both the sweetener and the flavoring. i could see the sweetener i suppose, artificial sweeteners being so much more concentrated than sugar, but shouldn’t it have more flavor than it has preservatives?
you know what? it actually has barely any flavor. which for a diet drink may be a step up! i don’t get that awful sick feeling in my tum-tum from it. but i also don’t taste anything in general. so that is bad. maybe i am lacking in the taste buds that are required for this drink… i don’t get it. slightly sweet water is what it is. brown, slightly sweet water. barely carbonated too. weird.
Ingredients:carbonated water, caramel color, potassium benzoate (a preservative), aspartame, and natural and artificial flavor.

Anthony’s Rating: 23
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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
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i am not sure when the Lost Trail people decided to star making a diet version of their root beer, but i had been unaware of its existence until recently. their other sodas are quite tasty though. perhaps they were busy for years refining the formula and junk on the diet version, getting it just right. let’s see…
you know, i was actually kidding there but it may in fact be true. this is not half bad! i mean, for a diet drink. it actually TASTES like root beer! eventually the metal flavor inches in, but not too much and it is somewhat ignorable. but as a professional reviewer, i cannot ignore it. i have to report it as it happens. you though, faithful readers, can feel free to ignore it. especially if you are drinking this by choice, in which case you probably have to for whatever reason and you will be used to it and find this just delightful. it is pretty creamy, maybe that is covering the diet ickiness. it has a very large, long lasting foaming head which is more for show than anything i think. but that looks good. you could throw some Skinny Cow ice desert in here and have a good ole fashioned diet root beer float. or a brown cow if that is how you roll. not a black cow though! ooooh boy, no! if/when i go diabetic i may get some of this stuff but i may just cry when that day comes and take some insulin.
Ingredients:filtered carbonated water, caramel color, aspartame (nutrasweet brand), potassium benzoate (preservative), natural & artificial flavors, citric acid

Anthony’s Rating: 58
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