i got an email telling me that the Aldi supermarket chain had this soda now in stock. i had never even heard of it so i was intrigued. i tried to get to an Aldi as soon as i could, knowing they could sell out at any moment anyway. i admit i don’t quite understand that store, they sell 99% their own brand of foods, so why do they seem to get random microbrew sodas occasionally? do they get some awesome closeout deal like Marshall’s or Odd Lot or something? weird, like i said.
upon trying to research this soda some more, i found something interesting. and that is that there is absolutely no info on it anywhere i could find. even the website on the bottle has no info on this drink. so perhaps it is a closeout and they no longer even make it.
people often ask me why i don’t review cream sodas. i tell them it is because i don’t like cream soda. for some reason, people really associate root beer and cream soda together. why am i saying this now? because i think this soda is the missing link between the two. blindfolded i would swear this is a cream soda. but it is not quite as awful as most cream sodas are. i get a hint of root beer and that saves it, sort of. it is still pretty no good but i think it would appeal to some people. i think this is the taste that those “root beer float” sodas try to get. super creamy but just not enough root beer flavor for me.
Ingredients:carbonated water, cane sugar, caramel color, natural and artificial flavor, sodium benzoate (preservative) and citric acid

Anthony’s Rating: 55
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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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Jon is probably the only person i know who has more root beers than me. we have made a couple of trades in the past but as time goes on, it gets harder for each of us to find more sodas that the other has not had. if something new comes out, often we both get it. but we worked out another trade here and that is a good thing. a very good thing! Nine new sodas for me! hoorah!

this one is tricky. it comes in a Sprecher bottle, is made by Sprecher, but sold by Cherry Republic. i supposed i should probably file it under “Cherry Republic” instead of “Sprecher” but i decided not to.
i was pretty excited for this. afterall, besides root beer and the like, cherry soda is probably my favorite soda. i have considered starting a sister site to review cherry sodas even. i think ginger brews would be interesting too actually but they don’t vary quite as much as root beers or cherry sodas. anyway… so cherry and root beer together? hhhmmm, that could work. but does it? before i answer that, i will digress.
the label has a drawing of a bear picking cherries from the roots of a cherry tree. that is kind of clever and cute. more so since their normal cherry soda has the same bear picking cherries from the top of a cherry tree. they also make a cherry cola but that does not seem to have a witty illustration on its label. alas. the rest of the label has a background to make it look like wood. fine, whatever.
ok, so the taste? eh, it is ok. not really root beer tasting which is a bit surprising, being made by Sprecher and all. although there are no ingredients that would indicate it should have any root beer taste anyway. the cherry taste is definitely there, but not overpowering. it is a sweet, dark cherry taste with a little tart edge to it. hefty, not light and refreshing or anything. as a drink it is just ok. as a root beer, it disappoints. there is a little something beyond the cherry taste, a hint of something more, which could be the root beer aspect. it isn’t bad, it just isn’t awesome which i think it could have been.
Ingredients:carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, cherry juice concentrate, natural and artificial cherry flavor, citric acid, and sodium benzoate (preservative)

Anthony’s Rating: 76
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this one was pointed out to me by the mighty Jon, otherwise i may never have found it. so thanks once again to him for that. granted, i then traded him a bottle from the six(6)-pack i ordered so he got some for his collection anyhow.

the soda is named after a tiger at Crown Ridge Tiger Sanctuary which aims to be 100% green. sounds good. i am not sure i see a connection between soda and tigers, but animals seem to inspire a lot of root beers so whatever, a tiger works as well as a whale does, maybe more so.

they use no preservatives, which seems to be more common lately. i don’t know if there is a backlash against preservatives, but i can get behind that. i just have to remember to drink this stuff soon.

you can also earn prizes for collecting bottle caps! now that i really like. as someone who got a load of Bazooka Joe stuff with the comic inserts in the 80s as well as countless breakfast cereal promotions, i wondered why that sort of thing faded out so much. perhaps the shipping costs got prohibitive.

the taste of this one is good. there is a little bit of a brown cinnamon hint i feel like, but beyond that it is pretty much as expected. very large head which does not, thankfully, translate into an overcarbonated drink. not too creamy, but that is fine, some ice cream can add that aspect to it if needed. i prefer that sometimes really. it is smooth though. sweet too, the cane sugar works well on this one. it is good. if you live around there, get some, collect and save the bottle caps, get some tickets or t shirts or whatever. and visit the tigers, they sound like fun.
Ingredients:filtered carbonated water, cane sugar, natural flavors and citric acid

Anthony’s Rating: 84
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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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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
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woo hoo! ok, i admit, i am fully aware that there are actually hundreds of root beers out there i will never have. the reason being that they are only available on tap and occasionally in a take home growler at a single brewery location somewhere in the US where i will probably not get to. i do my best to get to such locations but it is quite difficult, especially right now with two tiny people to watch over. that sort of limits the 12 hours of driving a day road trips which i quite enjoy. perhaps one day again we can do such things. by then though, many of these breweries may be gone, sadly enough.

once in a while though, someone emails me and offers to send me a growler from their local brewery or whatever. i don’t think anyone has actually come through on this offer though. until NOW! James emailed me, saying he was going to be traveling and if i knew of any sodas i wanted in the areas he would be going. i mentioned a couple and he said he’d be going to this brewery and would be happy to get me a growler. and he did! he also packed it insanely well and mail it off quickly which is key since growlers go bad pretty quickly.

but how is the soda after all of this? well, the taste here is actually pretty darn bad. you get a sense of licorice but not a lot and it is accompanied by a more bitter herbal taste. i like herbal tasting things sometimes, often even. but not this one. to me, soda though should not be all bitter, it should be at least somewhat on the “sweet” side of the spectrum. this here drink is not though. it is just harsh and kind of acidic. a shame really as it took a lot of time and energy to get to me. but i have to call it as i see it. or taste it as this case may be. it is also ironic that i am drinking this Bugeater root beer right after the giant recall of Similac baby formula because of beetle parts in it.
Anthony’s Rating: 32
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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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the flagship offering from this company! the flavor Wild Bill himself perfected over 20 years of trial and error! or at least what he thought of as perfect. so does it stack up? is it as good as the natural version? or is it even better with the preservatives and non-cane sugar? on a side note, i am surprised that the natural one has cane sugar and the beet sugar while this just has the beet sugar. the only real difference seems to be the preservatives in this one. but hey, this way i will leave a prettier corpse for whoever wants to view such things. at least until it is lit aflame and sent off to sea in a viking craft.

so anyway, this is indeed very very good. better that the Natural Bill’s? i don’t know, i don’t think it is quite as good for some reason. that reason being that after about a minute i get this weird taste in my mouth. before that it is delightful. it is quite sweet but with a light, rooty taste to it. yeah, it is a pretty light flavor, not too intense and shocking, just calm and tasty and mouth pleasing. this is one soda i am happy i had to buy a case of.
Ingredients:carbonated water, michigan beet sugar, natural & artificial flavor, phosphoric acid & sodium benzoate to preserve quality

Anthony’s Rating: 91
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yeah, this gets kind of complex here. this Michigan based company makes three (3) root beers, this natural one, one with artificial stuff in it and a diet. but don’t confuse it with the NJ based Wild Bill’s and any of their offerings as they are totally unrelated. i also am unsure how to title this drink. the website calls it “Natural Bill’s Root Beer” but the bottle itself has it as “Wild Bill’s Natural Root Beer.” not that it matters much in the end, but theses are the sorts of things that plague my brain when i do this website stuff. i just know i will get some emails telling me about the other named beverage, whichever way i go with it.
i think i found this one by looking at every brand in the root-beer.org brand list and trying to see which were current brands i may have missed. it was quite a time consuming task but that i found any new sodas to get makes it worthwhile to me.
so the organic dehydrated cane juice really gives this a maple syrup-ish flavor, kind of a deep caramel taste that i really enjoy. it is not upfront but it develops in time and lingers, causing your tongue to miss it when it is gone. along with that is a vanilla, creamy side that adds to the magic. this really is very good, probably the best “natural” soda i have ever had. which i think is saying something as i have had a good amount of sodas. i think some people will find this too sweet and i can see that, but it is really a good sweetness in my mind. the label proclaims it is the result of 20 years of trying to make the smoothest, richest root beer. it definitely is up there in both categories i would say. i am surprised, for how sweet and rich it is, that the sugar content is not that high really. well done, Northwoods, i hope the other sodas are as good as this! we will find out soon enough. this one went first since it seemed to have no preservatives. i better go home and drink the rest soon!
Ingredients:carbonated water, organic dehydrated cane juice, natural flavor, and phosphoric acid

Anthony’s Rating: 95
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