Diet Barq’s Root Beer
Printed in big bold letters is the phrase “artificially flavored”. It almost seems like they are proud of it . . . in my “Root Beer Psychology” class, Barq’s is a case study on the false sense of “brewvado.”
I have to admit, I do like diet soda, so diet barq’s root beer stands a chance.
Every sip of this brew (I don’t know if it should even be called a brew) gets worse and worse. This actually doesn’t even taste like a root beer – it is sort of fruity with maybe a little bit of a cherry taste. The carbonation, smell, head, and color don’t really even seem to matter – because it doesn’t seem like a root beer to me.
As far as the “dietness” of the taste goes – I have had a lot worse. I don’t sense a lot of the artificial sugar taste – although it does have a bite and I guess part of that could be related to the aspartame. Oh well . . .
The Professor’s Grade: F
Deerfield Trading Company Old Fashioned Root Beer
Apparently “Old Fashioned” means absolutely flavorless – more on that later. Deerfield Trading Company Root Beer is packaged exclusively for Walgreens. But when I checked out walgreens.com, there was not mention of the root beer or the company. There were some other Deerfield products – but it was called “Deerfield Farms” and I suspect that it is a different company.
Anyway – it is pretty neat that Walgreens would have a gourmet root beer in addition to their generic brand. I was expecting a half decent brew – given that they would take the time and effort to make a root beer with no “high fructose corn syrup” and that they would bottle this instead of plopping it in a can or plastic bottle. Unfortunately, I was “big-time” disappointed!
I’ve read some half-decent reviews of the brew on other web-sites, but I didn’t find anything half-decent at all. This root beer had virtually no head with a light root beer color. The brew tasted very watery and it was extremely light on taste. One of my family members commented that it didn’t really even taste like a root beer at all. There was a bite at the end of each swallow of beer, but it didn’t make up for the overall lack of root beerness in this concoction.
The Professor’s Grade: F +
