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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.

1919 Root Beer

ah, review number 500! whoa! fifteen (15) years plus since i started this site and added it to the many pages i was doing at the time. at the time i don’t think i expected this would be the one that would last. although, logically my zine was bound to die out eventually even if i never sold out myself. as was my record label. and “anthony’s most annoying of the web” seemed unnecessary after a bit, so many sites were annoying.

this is a soda i have been hearing about for years and years. it is a draft only soda that is carried at many restaurants and other eateries in the midwest. that is a very unique thing. i can’t say i know of any others in fact. some breweries sell kegs in addition to their bottled offering or else just offer the soda on draft at their locations, but 1919 is not unique to one chain or place. but i live no where near Minnesota or any of the places they served 1919 so it was just on my “wishlist” for a long time. one day though i got an email from a reader telling me that 1919 was selling pony kegs for home consumption! i immediately emailed them and got pricing info. being as it is a 5 liter can/keg, it is quite heavy so it is also costly to buy and even more so to ship. thus i put off the purchase. paying more than $20 for a single new soda is a bit much, even if it is a LOT of that single soda. then i realized review #500 was coming so i emailed them again more recently as i couldn’t find my old email and i figured costs probably changed in the intervening 5 or 7 or whatever years. i explained why i was ordering too, so they might be as excited as me. they responded by offering to send me a pony keg for reviewing! for free! whoa!! and they know how to ship this stuff. sent out on a Monday so it would not sit anywhere too long, packed with inches of foam and disposable ice packs all around it since it has no preservatives, it arrived very safe and sound and went right in my fridge
sweet to perfection. creaminess is just right. endnote of herbs which fades to a smooth vanilla mouth feel and a very happy anthony. this is for sure worth the wait and fully deserving of being review number 500! posting on my birthday too, nice! funny, i did not plan it that way at all. anyway… i envy the people who can get this easily at their local eatery or even bar. i might go to a bar if i could have a flagon of this fine beverage. what else to say about this? the head is marvelous, long lasting and majestic.
i wrote a lot more a couple months ago when i reviewed this but for some reason it got lost so i will try to update more soon.
Anthony’s Rating: 98
User’s Rating: 83
# of ratings:6
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365 All Natural Root Beer Soda

this would be Whole Foods store brand. it is another “natural” root beer. the brew only has four ingredients (purified carbonated water, cane sugar, natural flavors and caramel color), but who knows how many “natural flavors” there are in here. it has a real bite to it, but not much else. not really a taste either, just that initial, sort of bitter thing that hits your mouth. for such a natural beverage, it is alright, but i hope for more if you are going to harvest the cornicopia of “natural flavors.”
Ingredients:filtered carbonated water, pure cane sugar, natural root beer flavor and caramel color (from cane sugar)

Anthony’s Rating: 38
User’s Rating: 46
# of ratings:56
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A & P Premium Draft Root Beer

to celebrate their 150th anniversary, this east coast grocery chain released this soda. kind of like Foodtown did a couple years ago although i am not sure Foodtown had any such motivation for their glass bottled soda line. one of my co-workers told me about it and i soon after rushed over to the closest A&P to get myself a 4 pack.
i am surprised this has a non-twist off cap. it is pretty rare actually that sodas do the bottle opener needed thing, especially in this day and age of people not really having them as handy and available. luckily i do for just such an occasion, but the common everyday soda drinker may not and i suspect that A&P does not have one mounted on their wall for customer use.
also surprising is the use of 2 different forms of potassium as preservatives. this stuff will probably survive as long as twinkies and cockroaches! wacky. i guess it will preserve my organs and junk if i drink enough. that would be strange so i will not do it.
this has to be one of the sodas i have had this the most carbonation and foam. perhaps that non-twist cap really does seal in the freshness better! it has actually overflowed with foam twice now. the second time i tried to stop it with my hand by cutting off the air supply but that just made it spray all over my phone next to it. i should clean that off soon or i will have a sticky phone forever. although soda is still slowly dripping out of one of the seam areas, several minutes later. weird.
i like their labels and design work pretty good too. at least the front label. an old photo of an A&P store with the soda info over it. they even sprung for a neck label too! after trying to do neck labels for my wedding root beer, i realize how hard it is to get them to go on with no bubbles. this bottles fails that area worse than my efforts did. no matter though.
this soda is mysterious. at first it was very sharp and stinging, but as i get closer to the bottom it is more smooth and almost creamy. perhaps that is a function of the carbonation being let out and the true taste coming through. interesting… in the beginning of the bottle i was pretty disappointed in it, but now i like it pretty well. it is still too generic and not a whole lot better than many bottled root beers, but it is better than other store brands canned offerings. the taste now is mellow, smooth, rather sweet and pretty normal. so a solidly good normal root beer is what we have here. i think it is worth the price, check it out if you are in A&P territory.
Ingredients:carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, natural and artificial flavor, potassium benzoate (a preservative), citric acid, potassium sorbate (a preservative)

Anthony’s Rating: 71
User’s Rating: 75
# of ratings:1
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A & W Float

i have been hearing about this drink since it came out a year or so ago. people wrote in about it at first, something new! i have seen it in stores but did not bother buying it until now. the biggest reason i finally got it was because i found out Barq’s Floatz had been discontinued without me ever having tried it. i figured this too may not be long for this earth so i may as well get on it as soon as i can. i have low expectations here though. mainly because as much as i believe a root beer float drink is an interesting idea, it has never worked well in reality as far as i have found. and this does not either.
first off, they are wise to use the full bottle label, it disguises the vile color of the drink. although it is what one would expect, a cloudy dark beige color, it is still not appealing in any way.
second, i find it kind of suspect that on the website they say the shelf life is 6 months yet there is no way to know the age of your bottle unless you call the local bottler to interpret the bottling codes printed on the bottom. there is also no mention of this pretty sort shelf life on the product itself. granted, it IS a sort of dairy product so even 6 months seems a long time to have anything with milk in it to remain good, which then makes me suspicious of the chemicals in here that allow that to happen.
on the whole this taste alright, at least at first, after about 10 seconds it becomes sort of vile. but at first it is decent, kind of like if you poured some cream in your flat root beer, very creamy, very rich, but also strange. it taste vaguely like root beer, a very sweet version but the flavor is there. i feel like i would enjoy root beer flavored milk but maybe not since it might taste like this. but at least i would get more protein and calcium (1g and 4% respectively) that way. and there is an insane amount of sugar in here! about 50% more than normal root beers.
i will say that this is the best of the 3 or 4 other root beer float sodas i have had, which is saying very little i guess since they were awful.
Ingredients:filtered carbonated water, sugar, skim milk and 2% or less of each of the following: cream, pectin, natural & artificial flavors, phosphoric acid, carmel color, propylene glycol alginate, acacia gum, nitrous oxide (creates foam)

Anthony’s Rating: 31
User’s Rating: 25
# of ratings:36
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A & W Root Beer

there is a distinctly different taste difference in buying this in the store and at their restaurants. perhaps because you get it in a rad mug at the restaurant or perhaps it is that fountain / bottled difference. in any case, they are both good. sweet without being syrupy, creamy so it goes down like silk. i think it is the best of the huge brands.
Ingredients:carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar, caramel color, sodium benzoate (preservative), natural and artificial flavors

Anthony’s Rating: 71
User’s Rating: 74
# of ratings:1626
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A-Treat Root Beer

i suspected they made a root beer also but i had never seen it with my own eyes. or heard any tales of it either. strange really that the places i can kegs of soda from only have the birch beer, perhaps the root beer does not come in that form? curious. anyway, the root beer is good for a canned soda actually. a little bit of an herbal taste on top of the usual, expected, standard root beer flavor. sweet in a sugary way, definitely fructose i think, corn syrup that is really i would bet. if you can get it at a good price, i would recommend this beverage, but i would not spend lots of money to mail order or anything.
Anthony’s Rating: 83
User’s Rating: 94
# of ratings:13
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Abita Root Beer

this does not have the wacky after taste that most cane sugar root beers seem to have, which is a very good thing. yet, it tastes fairly standard and is just like a normal root beer. which is fine. not bad, but not amazing or anything. i’d definitely drink it more though, of course.
Ingredients:carbonated water, cane sugar, caramel color, root beer flavor, phosphoric acid.

Anthony’s Rating: 84
User’s Rating: 81
# of ratings:211
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Acme Root Beer

this has a kind of citrus taste to it that has the potential to be good, but just isn’t really. it isn’t awful, but it isn’t yummy or anything. it would probably be one of my last choices actually.
Anthony’s Rating: 35
User’s Rating: 49
# of ratings:54
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Adirondack Draft Style Root Beer

kind of bland and not too good overall. i just don’t taste anything here at all. it smells like root beer, true, but it is not like i am getting so drunk i don’t notice it doesn’t taste like it. oh well.
Ingredients:crystal clear carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar, caramel color, sodium benzoate (a preservative), natural and artificial flavor, and citric acid

Anthony’s Rating: 16
User’s Rating: 51
# of ratings:86
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AJ Stephans Old Style Root Beer

ah, yes, now i am seeing… i actually am unsure if this is different than the soda above but they were sold at the same store so i don’t think it is just a repackaging. but they do have the same ingredients and the same UPC code so maybe… ok, taste em and see anthony! nope, they are different for sure. this one has a foam that disappates much more quickly. the taste is different too. not as overwhelmed with fizzyness, one can taste the brew a bit more. there is a slight anise taste here also i think, not as strong as the sarsaparilla though. still a worth brew though.
Ingredients:pure carbonated water, pure cane sugar, flavor, caramel color, sodium benzoate as a preservative

Anthony’s Rating: 88
User’s Rating: 81
# of ratings:26
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