Welcome to Brews Of Root Extraction Online. This post reviews the “Zero Sugar” variety of the godfather of root beers, A&W. The root beer made by A&W (at least the version that’s sold on draft, still in frosty glass mugs, in their restaurants) is considered by many the standard of what good root beer should be. I wanted to see if their sugar-free version passed muster. This tasting used a plastic bottle of A&W Zero Sugar purchased for $2.50 from a local chain grocery store.
I review brews using five criteria, scoring each from 1 to 5.
A. Sweetness: 4. Surprisingly for a “diet” soft drink, they got the sweetness just about right. They use aspartame, which usually either isn’t sweet enough or imparts an off-flavor. Make no mistake, there are off-flavors in this root beer, but I don’t think they’re due to the sweetener.
B. Lightbody spices: 1. There pretty much aren’t any. If I didn’t know any better and you just told me this was diet cream soda, I would believe you. In addition, there is a strange, almost soapy off-flavor somewhere in the profile.
C. Heavybody spices: 2. There is vanilla, and the slightest hint of anise (or is it fennel? or chicory? or something else of dubious origin?), but that’s it. Again, it leans pretty hard towards cream soda, with some kind of chemical taste floating around in there.
D. Uniqueness: 3. It’s a diet root beer, and not really a great one at that. But I give A&W credit for offering something that isn’t high fructose corn syrup-based.
E. Mouthfeel: 3. It’s pretty watery. There’s enough carbonation, but just enough.
Overall score: 13/25. If you’re looking for a zero sugar, sweet soda pop, this might be your jam, especially if you like cream soda. If you want good root beer, keep looking.
Bike Newbie 