i am not quite sure why this soda was so hard to find. actually finding specific Jones Soda flavors in general is difficult. i don’t see the regular root beer all that often. or when i am in the mood for a foofoo berry, i can’t find that. stores seem to pick a couple of random flavors and stock them. or maybe they just don’t sell and sit on the shelf? i doubt that, seems a waste of shelf space and stores are supposedly very aware of exact turnover of all stock.
you probably know about Jones Soda by now. they are the ones who have different photos on their labels, may of them sent in by the public at large. so that is fun. you can even order soda with any photo you want to put on them. that is handy for weddings or birth announcements or break ups or cookie decorating or whatever occasion you want custom labelled soda for. they now seem to have fortunes stolen from actual fortune cookies under the caps. which is fine i guess but they invite you to send in ones you found also, which seems to extend the laziness. they can’t take their own photos or get their own fortune cookie fortunes now. i guess next they will invite you to send in your own paper for the label or perhaps you own bottles or maybe your own soda to fill it. lazy kids these days…
so whatever, this drink is not good. there is barely any root beer taste to it. blindfolded, i don’t think i would know it was supposed to be root beer to be honest. it does have a gross metallic taste though! so if you are looking for a steel flavored carbonated beverage, here you go, find this and you are set. maybe if they DID have people send in soda it would be tastier. ok, it is not spit-out level bad but it is not even decent.
Ingredients:carbonated water, caramel color, natural and artificial flavors, phosphoric acid, sucralose, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (as preservatives)

Anthony’s Rating: 31
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usually red birch beers come in a brown glass bottle for whatever reason. because of that, i often have to figure out it is actually red or if it is really brown in there. but this one leaves nothing to the imagination at all. it is definitely red. very red. so red that later, when i am not thinking about what i drank today i will pee and get a little scared for a second. probably not, but maybe. that happens with beets though. it makes one wonder just where all this dye goes instead of out of me. hhhmmmm.
the taste here is probably the same as the white, brown, golden and blue, but i will pretend it is different. this one seems a bit more watery. the main taste is a solid wintergreen. my friend who sits across from me at work tried this, never having had birch beer before and he said it tastes like mouthwash. which is not so far off i suppose, just much sweeter. if you like that and always have to stop your urge to swallow after swishing instead of spitting in the sink, this is up your alley. it even has the total lack of carbonation of mouthwash. i actually quite enjoy wintergreen myself so i am ok with all of this.
Ingredients:carbonated water, sugar and/or corn sweetener, natural and artificially flavored, caramel, red #40 or blue#1 except white

Anthony’s Rating: 82
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so i finally broke down and decided i was not going to just find Kutztown White Birch Beer in my travels and that i needed to mail order some. of course i did some searching to get the best price. shipping bottles of soda is quite costly and small companies are usually not too keen on sending free review samples out. most often it is cheapest to buy right from the company but in this case i happened to find another site that sold the desired soda. plus they carried this one too! whoa, a local home brew! crazy! and very cool too of course. i do worry a bit about the fermentation level as it is yeast carbonated, but i won’t get overly concerned about it. as an even cooler bonus, they had shoo fly pies! i love me some shoo fly pie! the one i got was mediocre i will admit though. hopefully it did not set a precedent for stuff purchased in the same order.

anyway, getting to the drink at hand… after a few sips of this, i just can’t bring myself to drink much more. it is just so overwhelmingly yeasty. i don’t like yeast carbonated drinks as much as other carbonation methods it seems anyway but this takes it to another level. perhaps that is historically what root beer was like but it is not what my mouth buds like. i don’t even taste the root beer flavor. i really REALLY want to like this and support a homebrewer and so on but i can’t. it is gross. perhaps it is just this bottle. i do have another at home i will sample too. perhaps it is the shipping time made it carbonate more. or perhaps i should be mixing it up more as there is a lot of sediment on the bottom. i think that would make it even yeastier though. oh well, can’t win em all! the head is pretty nice, that is a bonus. the aftertaste does not linger terribly long either, so that is another plus i suppose.
Ingredients:water, sugar, root beer extract, yeast

Anthony’s Rating: 6
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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
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so i finally broke down and figured i would probably not get to make a road trip to PA anytime soon in a quest for the rest of the Big Ben’s sodas i had not had. so i mail ordered them. they only mail order the 20 oz plastic bottles though which is a bit of a shame as the glass bottles they use are awesome, re-used and collected from old bottlers, some are 50+ years old! but i can understand not shipping those off as they need them back. of course i would rather not drink from plastic when possible though. strangely, this flavor is not one you can get in glass though so take that as you will. another thing annoying here is that the carbonation level of all of the bottles i have had so far is very very low. i want to hear that fizz, the gas escape, it makes me happy. i don’t get that here.
i find it strange that there is no flavoring listed in the ingredients. i am guessing the “natural and artificial color” should be “natural and artificial flavor” though. i suppose this is officially titled “Fast Draw Sarsaparilla” to try to draw in some of that cowboy allure. yet the “Fast Draw” part is in a very small font so i doubt it would have a lot of effect anyway. this tastes like a sarsaparilla to me. it is similar to root beer, but different, more herbal, verging on medicinal but in a good way. it just tastes more earthy and natural although i am sure it is not. some anise is detectable but not overpowering. the lack of carbonation does bother me a bit and the flavor is not amazing although it is good. i don’t regret getting it at all and will happily drink the others i got. the world needs more sarsaparillas and small soda bottlers so i am happy to support these guys and gals.
Ingredients:carbonated water, sugar and/or corn sweetener, natural and artificial color, caramel, citric acid, and preserved with sodium benzoate

Anthony’s Rating: 82
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so i had to add a whole new category for this soda. that would be the second one for this company, whose blue birch beer was also unique. as the ingredient list on all five (5) of their birch beers are the same, they probably are actually all the exact same thing with colorings added. but perhaps not, what do i know? i could ask but that would ruin it all.
the labels on all of them are the same and have this patriotic, flag theme. i can see that for the red, white and blue birches, but for the golden and dark birch it makes less sense beyond the cost savings.
this one is more the color of a ginger beer, golden indeed. over the past week or so i have tried the other colors and i really do think they taste at least a little different. this one is a bit sweeter and slightly less minty than the white but more so than the dark. i would say it is very similar to the red. i have not had the blue in years so i can’t quite make that comparison. the wintergreen taste is very upfront though. so if you like wintergreen lifesavers, you will probably like this. sadly it does not spark in the dark like they do though. it is a very solid birch beer. get some of any of them if you come across it. this one only comes in the 20 oz plastic bottle though so it may be tougher to find. or just mailorder, their rates are very good.
Ingredients:carbonated water, sugar and/or corn sweetener, natural and artificially flavored, caramel, red #40 or blue#1 except white

Anthony’s Rating: 83
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i am not sure what to file this under. it is the current (as of 11/2010 when i am writing this) store brand for Stop & Shop and Giant food stores and perhaps other food store chains. this seems to have succeeded the Main St branded stuff. i was hesitant to even review this, but what the hey, why not? it may be the same as the Main St one really, but i don’t know that for sure. since i have a policy against reviewing vanity labeled stuff multiple times, i feel like that rule should apply to reviewing any soda that is exactly the same more than once. but i don’t want to put it under Giant or Stop & Shop (even though i put the Main St and its predecessor, the Select stuff under Main St, i know, get over it, database nerd talk is losing me readers). thus i am just calling this “Foodhold” as that is the maker. yeah, that works. not that anyone is ever going to come here wondering what i thought of the root beer they get at their Giant Store and find this, so it is sort of a secret of sorts. sshhhh…
this is a store brand generic soda. obviously. even by those standards, this is not very good. i am trying to figure out what my issue is with it and it seems multi-fold. the carbonation is harsh for one thing, too much and too sharp. the flavor is just off also, too sickly sweet in a bad way. the more i drink of this, the less i like it. it comes off as a not thick root beer syrup to me. which almost sounds appealing to my sweet tooth but is not in reality.
Ingredients:carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, potassium benzoate (a preservative), natural and artificial flavor and citric acid

Anthony’s Rating: 51
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this is one i have always been meaning to order. i put it off since i always thought it was just Cool Mountain Root Beer in a new bottle. i am still not sure it is not that but i will go on the thought that they are different. Cool Mountain does own this brand and they don’t make their own root beer anymore though so take that as you will. i should probably put them both under the Evolution Brands flag to tie them together somehow but i am lazy right now i suppose. mostly though that is confusing to users.

i have not had Cool Mountain root beer in many years but tasting this and reading my review of that, i would say they are indeed different formulations. ok, good. this is not so watery. it is more heavy, almost thick and syrupy. i am not saying it is too sweet because it is not, the sweetness is just fine. it just feels heavy in my mouth, not light and refreshing so much as solid. not overpowering either. it is ok, pretty much the expected taste with that heavy mouth feel. the label design is pretty solid, different at least, i will give them that. the metallic brown ink is a nice touch. among the chicago area root beers, this falls short, Sprecher, Goose Island and Berghoff are all better. this just does not set itself apart in any way. it just is. which is ok but i hoped for better.
Ingredients:filtered water, pure cane sugar, natural and artificial flavor, caramel color, phosphoric acid, sodium benzoate as a preservative

Anthony’s Rating: 71
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i really don’t go to Aldi stores much. in fact, the two times i have gone have both been to get random root beers that readers told me they found there. it always strikes me as a weird place, like it is a sort of club store, such as Costco, where i am supposed to be a member and know the secret ways to shop there. or maybe i am just weird and paranoid or something myself. anyway, both times i went to Aldi, in addition to the glass bottled microbrew i had gone there to get, they also had a seeming store brand, last time it was Sweet Valley and this time it is this one. now it has not been all that long between visits, maybe a year or so, keep that in mind as i ramble for a moment or two. from what i can gather this soda is only sold at Aldi. it proclaims itself as “New & Improved!” so unless it is really Sweet Valley in disguise, they new and improved it might quickly, since like i said, it was a short time ago. the old and un-improved recipe must have been really bad. but perhaps they came out of the valley and reached the summit of flavor. tee hee. but then again, Sweet Valley could have been around for many years, unknown to me and i just happened to frequent the store at the right times.

now the message on the side of the can also has me confused: “to those seeking fun and refreshment or performance-driven energy, Summit is the quality brand of colas and carbonated beverages that brings flavor and function to fit your lifestyle.” i just don’t even know where to start with that. are colas not carbonated beverages? is this supposed to appeal more to people who refer to all soda as “cola?” what sort of performance driven energy will this give me? i run and cycle a good amount so perhaps i should replace my usual pre- or during drink to this if it is so wonderful. i don’t think it would fit my lifestyle as promised though, carbonated beverages in the water bottle are often a bad combo.

so does it taste good? it is decent. generic mostly. the carbonation is not as harsh as some generic sodas. the flavor is lacking. it is decently sweet but there not really much to it. i would say it is in fact a little better than the Sweet Valley, but i still would get many other sodas first, even store brands and definitely some mainstream ones.
Ingredients:carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, natural and artificial flavors, and potassium benzoate (a preservative)

Anthony’s Rating: 65
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so i never really knew what malic acid was but this time i wondered so i looked it up in the giant brain. there i found out it is added to food to make it tart, mostly in extreme candies. often instead of the less sour citric acid, which i also kind of wondered why it was in root beer. now, i really don’t know why. would these sodas be too sweet otherwise? is root beer supposed to be tart and no one ever told me? that would be rather funny to me.
so yeah, this has malic acid, let’s see how it is.
the packaging is fine. the plaid is similar to the regular root beer but more generic looking at the plaid itself is white and silver, very reminiscent of the classic generic food containers which seem to have disappeared in the past couple of decades. as it IS indeed generic soda, that is not the worst thing.
and this is not the worst store brand diet soda. or even the worst diet soda in general. in fact it is better than some regular root beers. it is not good of course, but it is not terrible. i do get somewhat of a root beer flavor even! more prominent though is a sort of fruity thing in the middle taste which fades away and becomes a lingering diet soda taste that is never good. that that taste is minor is a major thing though for me. i dread diet sodas since they make me feel like i need to grab some pepto, but this one should be ok. thanks Meijer for that. it is also a little rough in the carbonation, it hurts my mouth a bit. i seem to be getting more sensitive to bad carbonation as i get older, weird. i think it is the larger bubbles from some forms of forced carbonation. it makes for a rough swallow. so you could do worse than this but it is not great. if i was a diabetic with 12 cents in my pocket, i might get this sometimes.
Ingredients:carbonated water, caramel color, potassium benzoate (preservative), aspartame, natural and artificial flavor and malic acid

Anthony’s Rating: 40
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