Zevia Ginger Root Beer
I have been checking this root beer out for quite some time. It is practically in every grocery store I visit, but the price on this baby is out of this world. I think the cost is over $6 for a 4 pack or a 6 pack. While I guess that is only about $1 a can, I normally don’t like to pay that much for a canned root beer, and especially a canned root beer that looks like it’s going to taste gross. I was lucky to find an individual can at Whole Foods the other day – so one and done baby!
Enough about cost . . . what makes this brew so unique is that it is a diet soda without actually being diet. It has no artificial sweeteners and yet has zero calories!! Zevia uses a combination of stevia and Erythritol to sweeten the beverage. The interesting part is that even though there are no artificial sweeteners – it still tastes a little like a diet beverage. Don’t ask me how they do it – they just do.
But with that being said – I would drink this on occassion instead of a regular diet root beer. Hey – it is all natural, no calories, no cancer causing diet ingredients (well . . . at this moment stevia has not been shown to cause cancer, but give it a few years and I’m sure it will be labeled as a carcinogen), and the taste is okay. This isn’t going to win any awards, but I’m sure it will be followed by a host of organic, all-natural type people who love this ginger flavored brew.
As far as the professor goes . . .I’m still undecided – my first couple of sips weren’t too good, but by the middle of the can it got pretty good. But now as I’m finishing the last couple of sips I think it is giving me a headache.
The Professor’s Grade: C –
Hannaford Diet Root Beer
Get excited now folks – this is your opportunity to read about a store-brand diet root beer! I did this review alone, as I really don’t like to expose the little professors to diet sodas. Although, for the most part this is all I drink – so my diet taste buds are actually quite refined. Of course, I go into diet sodas in . . . what else “Diet Root Beer 101.”
When I poured the brew it had a pretty impressive root beer color and a pretty impressive head. But when I sipped this beer it went downhill pretty quick. Smack, slam, wake-up – this is one of the nastiest diet flavors that has ever been attached to a root beer.
Pretty bad stuff – but sadly I will drink the rest of the 2 liter bottle. No reason to let a bottle of aspartame go to waste.
The Professor’s Grade: F
IBC Root Beer
Back at it again after a long absence . . . I already have an aversion to IBC Root Beer, because it tries to pass itself off as a hand-crafted micro-brewed root beer but it is nothing more than a Barq’s, A&W, or Mug in a bottle. But be that as it may, it is really not all that bad (cough, cough).
Let’s start with the downside – It has high-fructose corn syrup and a lot of it – 43g. And it has a pretty standard taste – nothing is really gonna blow your socks off. Good, but not spectacular. My little professors thought differently though. Professors #2 & #3 said this was the best root beer they ever had (although I think they say this every time they taste a brew). Professor # 2 also said that this root beer was quite frizzy – kinda like when your foot falls asleep. I’m assuming she means that this root beer had a good amount of carbonation in it 🙂 The picture shows Professor # 2 holding a bottle of IBC.
IBC had a real nice head and it had a nice licorice/anise smell to it. I thought it was quite creamy, but it also finished with a good bite. And the packaging is great – a very very cool bottle! All in all – I must admit – IBC is really not all that bad. It is fun to be reviewing some brews again
The Professor’s Grade: C +
