Summit Sudz Root Beer Soda

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
User’s Rating: 41
# of ratings:2
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Meijer Diet Root Beer

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
User’s Rating: 1
# of ratings:1
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High Country Wild Root Kombucha

ug, this is the most disgusting thing i have ever smelled or tasted. i was hoping it would be at least reasonably tasty as i hear a lot of how great kombucha is for you. but if this is what it tastes like, i am astounded that anyone would consume this, for any reason at all. if you are unfamiliar with kombucha, it is basically a fermented tea with yeast and bacteria and enzymes and junk. i would say it tastes kind of like that sounds. a rotten, basically disgusting mess. wow, people really drink this? i just can’t believe how horrible this tastes. it is like someone threw up vinegar and seltzer and you decided to bottle that. i took two sips and that was one too many. perhaps even two too many. holy slugs and snails! we have a new low ladies and gentlemen!
Ingredients:organic kombucha tea* and sarsaparilla root along with an extract of the following organic herbs: licorice root, star anise, yellowdock root, burdock root, wild cherry bark, dandelion root, vanilla bean and wintergreen.
*kombucha is a culture fermented in a base of purified water, organic tea and organic cane sugar

Anthony’s Rating: 1
User’s Rating: 55
# of ratings:3
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Eric’s Not-So-Gourmet Root Beer

ok, so it is leap day so i figured it was a good time to throw in a bonus review post. and also a Wednesday which is the day that reviews a new soda. Eric’s site is probably the 2nd oldest root beer reviewing site out there. he did take a long hiatus but he is back stronger than ever before (nope, he did not, i just thought he did!). coincidentally today’s post there is the first from him (i think) of a soda from a trade he and i did recently. this soda was a surprise throw in on that trade we did. he was very vague about just what he had sent me but said it was a new one to me. i was a bit skeptical since he may not know what i have queued up and all. when it arrived though i knew he was right.
this came in a Stewarts bottle, rebranded with Eric’s high quality labeling which uses recycled receipts apparently, very green! my label is from a purchase of postage! it has ‘Eric’s Seal of Disapproval’ along with the claims of ‘Limited Edition,’ ‘Caffeine Free!,’ ‘The Original,’ and ‘No Anthrax.’ the soda is pretty much the color of the Stewart’s Key Lime soda so i am a bit curious if he just sent me a bottle of that. i quite enjoy that flavor actually but i have not had it in years. yeah, it does taste like that. not so much root beer at all. thus as a root beer this is crappy but as a drink it is yummy. there is only so far you can push the flavor and still claim it is root beer and Eric has pushed it too far in my estimation! i think he just wants to expand the popular conception of “root beer” to include fruity drinks so that he has more stuff to review. limiting oneself to just gourmet root beers has become too stifling for him! he refuses to change site names or focus but if that focus is expanded by societal changes then oh well, guess he just HAS to review key lime sodas too… so the moral here is that key lime is the new root beer, at least according to Eric.
it is a conundrum though how to rate this. as i said above, i enjoy it, but it is not root beer, so i will put it right in the middle. it is tasty, sweet, without a trace of roots but plenty of limey tasting goodness.
update- after talking to Eric himself, it was revealed that this is indeed a bottle of Stewart’s Key Lime soda! wow, my taste buds amaze me sometimes! i had made a comment on his site about if someone took a bottle of lime soda and labelled it as root beer, how i would rate it highly if it was still a good soda. i suppose i should stick with that assertion but i am still on the fence so i will stick with my thoughts from when i wrote this up to start with.
Ingredients:carbonated water, sugar, totally legit root beer extract

Anthony’s Rating: 50
User’s Rating: 1
# of ratings:1
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