Welcome!

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.

Briar’s Diet Root Beer

can it be?! a diet soda that tastes good?! yeh, actually it does. weird. yeh, it has a slight aftertaste of NutraSweet but now i even less understand why other diet drinks with aspartame taste so awful. leave it to a NJ brewer to do it right i suppose. granted it is not amazing, but it is in fact better than many non-diet brews i have sampled. i may even finish the whole bottle. decently creamy, pretty sweet, but that weird sweet of nutrasweet although it is not overwhelming as i said already. if i was diabetic or whatever, i would drink this i think.
Anthony’s Rating: 58
User’s Rating: 49
# of ratings:4
Log in to save your ratings and personal root beer list!

Capone Family Secret Diet Root Beer

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
User’s Rating: 87
# of ratings:3
Log in to save your ratings and personal root beer list!

Chuck Wagon Diet Root Beer

at last, the final offering from this company! well, besides their non-root/birch beer or sarsaparilla offerings, obviously.
i don’t think i should have reviewed this soda today though. my tummy was already feeling a little weird and diet soda causes such things to happen out of no where on its own anyway. oh well, too late to turn back now i guess! carry on anthony!
as with many diet sodas, this seems alright for about a second, but then it is vile and i must rinse my mouth out to get rid of the awful awful, terrible aftertaste. there must be a word for that taste but i don’t know it. it is not the metallic taste which i sometimes get, it is worse.
it seems that diet root beer has an entirely different flavor that it is shooting for for whatever reason as many of them taste similar but not very much at all like their full-sugar brethren. and i don’t like that diet root beer flavor, whatever it is supposed to be.
this is ok, if you must drink diet. if you can have regular soda, just do it and walk a little to burn those extra calories, this is not really worth it.
Anthony’s Rating: 27
User’s Rating: 67
# of ratings:3
Log in to save your ratings and personal root beer list!

Cool Mountain Gourmet Soda Diet Root Beer

ug, i guess this is what i get for putting off reviewing sodas, this huge backlog of diet ones. this one i got some time ago and assumed i had reviewed it already when i went through my root beer fridge to see what was left to do. but then i realized i had not. and i was sad since i knew this was kind of old and i had best get to it as soon as possible. so here i am, getting to it. or perhaps putting it off as long as i can, even another moment or two. although with low expectations perhaps this will be ok.
alright, let me clear my palette and i will try it…
whoa, for a soda that is at least 2 years old, this thing has a buttload of carbonation! and it is not so bad. well, at least it does not have that awful diet soda aftertaste! which is a major step/breakthrough in beverage technology! wow. getting past that fact though, it does not really taste like much of anything at all. maybe that is the trade-off, avoid the terrible taste along with any good taste. i would love to go into more details about the flavor but there is not one. let me try again, swish it around or something fancy. nope, i just get that carbonation tickle on my tongue. so this soda is not bad or good, just there and wet.
Anthony’s Rating: 30
User’s Rating: 100
# of ratings:2
Log in to save your ratings and personal root beer list!

Cooper’s Cave Ale Company Diet Root Beer

wow, i really put off the review of this. well, not as badly as i have done with some sodas in the past i am sure, but i just don’t like diet sodas if you did not realize that already. i am not sure of the sweetener here but i will guess aspertame as it has that bitter aftertaste and doesn’t taste good to begin with. yes, it it gross. look, i just ran 16 miles, and i NEED to refuel and hydrate and i don’t even want to drink this. it is just bitter and bad. no hint of root beer taste that i can find. maybe i let it sit in the fridge too long? i need to cleanse my pallete
Anthony’s Rating: 13
User’s Rating: 100
# of ratings:1
Log in to save your ratings and personal root beer list!

Dad’s Diet Root Beer

ug, another diet soda from another highly respected root beer name. i am sure it will be vile, but i suppose i should not form an opinion already, before i even try it. this could be the one! a tasty diet soda! nah, what are the chances of that actually happening?
actually it is not awful. at least there is not that huge terrible aftertaste, for whatever reason. that is a huge step! granted the taste is not good. at least what there is of the taste. if you can even call this “taste.” i think i would term it “a kind of bitter, medicine-esque hint in my water.”
i think i have mentioned once or twice that i don’t enjoy diet sodas much so this should really be no surprise. perhaps i should hire someone who enjoys diet beverages to evaluate them. and by “hire” i mean hand them a bottle and publish what they write about it when i get around to it. but does anyone actually truly enjoy this stuff? maybe if i had to… well, this is better than a lot of them i guess.
Anthony’s Rating: 30
User’s Rating: 54
# of ratings:13
Log in to save your ratings and personal root beer list!

Deerfield Diet Root Beer

indeed, it is time for the diet version of this soda line to step up to the plate and be judged by yours truly! will it stack up to the regular kind or fall flat on its bubbles like so many other diet beverages before it? i suspect the latter as it is diet and all.
they went with sucrolose here, which i think is probably the best of the diet sugars. it makes little sense to me to include the “No High Fructose Corn Syrup” proclamation though, i mean, it is diet and would not be if it had the HFCS, now then would it?
there are about 3 or 4 waves of flavor with this drink, i don’t think i have ever experienced that before. first you get this slightly bitter, slightly root beer-ish flavor which quickly vanishes. it then becomes more metallic and “diet-soda-ish” with the more bitter thing happening. that lasts about 2 seconds and it becomes a sweeter flavor which is nice and happy but then that fades and the diet soda thing overwhelms you, but slowly. your tongue starts to feel like it has been painted, your tummy aches a little in protest. i can’t do it, i must stop. i don’t like it.
Anthony’s Rating: 26
User’s Rating: 79
# of ratings:10
Log in to save your ratings and personal root beer list!

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.
Ingredients:carbonated water, caramel color, sodium benzoate (protects flavor), aspartame, natural and artificial flavors, acesulfame potassium, malic acid

Anthony’s Rating: 50
User’s Rating: 62
# of ratings:14
Log in to save your ratings and personal root beer list!

Dog n Suds Sugar Free Root Beer

alright, so two days in a row I am endangering my innards for you loyal readers by ingesting a diet drink?! i really must have issues. or perhaps full-on subscriptions! hey that is a good idea, a subscription root beer service! i suppose there was a Root Beer of the Month club but i did not join since it was pricey and all they mentioned was sodas i had had. so who am i to talk about good ideas when i don’t even support them when they actually happen? so yeh, this soda…
i guess i don’t hate this. unlike 95% of diet sodas, the aftertaste on this one is bareable. granted it is still there and all bitter and metalic and yucky but it seems to take longer to happen so i actually do have about five seconds to enjoy the taste before that kicks in. to me, that is a very long time, for a diet soda. perhaps you could time it better and then take a sip of water or something right before the time when that aftertaste makes your mouth into a cesspool. the taste is even semi-rootbeer-ish! a creamy, pretty smooth flow and mouth feel, rare in a diet soda. among the diet brands, i would rank this pretty highly. the problem is, this is also being compared against sugar-filled sodas which do not make my stomach feel weird and iffy.
Anthony’s Rating: 31
User’s Rating: 63
# of ratings:3
Log in to save your ratings and personal root beer list!

Faygo Diet Root Beer

this sucks. tastes nothing like root beer really at all. just crappy nutrasweet, which i though tasted a lot better when i got those free gumballs in the mail when it came out so many years ago. oh well. weird, i am sure they will never do that sort of promo again, it is not like there were free gummi worms made with Splenda or whatever when they came out with that clorinated sugar nonsense. wel, this is more proof that diet soda stinks.
Ingredients:carbonated water, caramel color, aspartame, citric acid, potassium benzoate (as a preservative), natural and artificial flavor, gum arabic

Anthony’s Rating: 21
User’s Rating: 52
# of ratings:145
Log in to save your ratings and personal root beer list!