Let’s see how Old Red Eye turns out!

Branding

Old Red Eye goes for a bold red label with a somewhat cartoony bull in its logo. For some reason, they chose to put the Orca logo on the cap rather than keeping with the root beer’s name, which is a departure from some of their other root brews.

I have seen this bottle in a few places so you might be able to find it as well. Mug has a reddish look to its labeling as well, but it doesn’t go for a full red logo like Old Red Eye does.

Taste and Ingredients

Old Red Eye is caffiene free and gluten free. They also use pure cane sugar as their sweetener, and the ingredients are nice and short.

When you first open the bottle, you get a pretty standard root beer aroma. The flavor reminds me mostly of Mug. It doesn’t really have any unique flavor of its own, with maybe just a hint of licorice, even though that’s not listed as an ingredient.

The drink isn’t super fizzy or frothy, but it’s also not creamy like A&W or some other brands.

The Wrap Up

I enjoyed Old Red Eye root beer. It has a nice flavor, though it doesn’t really distinguish itself from the competition. You can find similar flavors at a lesser price by purchasing something like Mug, but if you care about drinks that aren’t overly processed with lots of unpronounceable words, then you’ll probably prefer Old Red Eye.

Branding

Dog n Suds has a cartoon dog serving hot dogs and root beer on its logo. In fact, if you go to their website, you can see that their logo is the same as it was over 70 years ago.

This classic look helps them to stand out from other drinks, primarily because of the bold colors, but also because almost no other soda companies use cartoon characters in their logos.

Taste and Ingredients

When you first open the bottle, you get a whiff of licorice and maybe a hint of vanilla. The soda seems to go down smoothly without lots of fizz.

The taste is once again not the mainstream root beer flavor, but it’s similar and pretty good. You will likely enjoy it more as you drink more of the root beer.

Dog n Suds actually reminds me or Dang Root Beer, but with a milder flavor.

The Wrap Up

I enjoyed Dog n Suds root beer. While it may be a throwback to an older flavor, that doesn’t make it bad. In fact, I thought it was pretty good and comparable to Dang! root beer.

Give it a try if you see it and if you have ever been to the restaurant, let me know!

Branding

I feel like Dang! does a better job in the branding department than many of the independent root beers. Mostly this is because it uses louder colors and the orange just pops really well compared with the dark brown of the root beer itself.

Taste and Ingredients

When I first opened the Dang! root beer, I didn’t care for the smell. While the ingredients don’t mention licorice, I am not sure how else to describe the odor.

Regardless, when you take your first sip of Dang, the taste doesn’t really seem like root beer. It’s certainly “rootsy,” and it’s also more complex than an A&W or a Barq’s tends to be, though.

The root beer is not creamy. There is no vanilla. There is some carbonation, perhaps more than A&W, but without being foamy.

Interestingly, I found that I enjoyed the flavor more the more I drank it, which is not always the case with these more complex-tasting root beers.

The Wrap Up

Dang! is a pretty good root beer. If you are looking for something generic, you probably won’t care for Dang, though. This drink doesn’t have that familiar root beer flavor, but it does have a nice one.

Give it a try, if you can find it near you.

Jones is a pretty popular brand with a wide variety of flavors. They also put out special flavors at various times of the year, such as their famous Thanksgiving Holiday Pack.

Let’s see how their root beer shakes out.

Branding

Jones has their own unique look. The photos on their bottles change, but since they usually use black-and-white photos, the “look” is mostly the same with their logo on top, the random photo, and then the flavor underneath.

I believe the photos were submitted by fans and chosen by the company. I’m not sure if they still do that.

Here are some photos of the bottle:

Taste and Ingredients

Jones has a twist-off bottle cap, which is somewhat unusual for a glass bottle. The smell of the root beer is subtle, but it exists. Some root beers seem to have no smell whatsoever. I didn’t taste any licorice-flavoring, but their may be a hint of vanilla even though it’s not listed as being in there.

The root beer taste itself is pretty flat, but smooth. I wouldn’t call it creamy exactly, but it’s got a nice flavor. There aren’t any unusual or strong flavors though. Barq’s tends to be a strong root beer, and even A&W tends to be a bit stronger than this.

However, I rather liked this one.

Let’s take a look at the ingredients:

Looks like Jones went with cane sugar and while the list of ingredients is small, they have more strangely named ingredients than some of the other brands reviewed on this site.

The Wrap Up

Jones root beer is pretty good. I can’t really say it has a unique root beer flavor, as it tends to be quite similar to many popular brews, but it’s a nice one. They didn’t mess up the taste and there are no unusual ingredients.

Give Jones a try! They were one of the first popular brands to always use cane sugar, which is pretty cool!

There are lots of other root beers from Chicago, such as Cicero’s, Triple XXX, and Filbert’s. So if you like Chicago, you should give this drink a try too!

Branding

There really isn’t much branding to this drink. You have the O-So logo in brown and yellow, and that’s about it. The cap is a fun color, though, and they did slap the phrase “Oh! So Good” on the neck of the bottle in yellow and white as well.

Taste and Ingredients

You can smell the butterscotch when you pop the cap off the bottle. There is a strong butterscotch flavor to the drink as well. In fact, I would call it more of a butterscotch dark soda than a root beer, though there is some root-beerish flavor.

Carbonation is light, so there isn’t a lot of fizz, and the root beer goes down smooth and creamy.

I think the main flavors, though, are the butterscotch and the vanilla. O-So also goes for pure cane sugar and mostly readable ingredients, so that’s a good thing.

The Wrap Up

While I prefer regular root beer, the butterscotch isn’t a terrible addition. However, the butterscotch certainly masks the root beer flavor. If you don’t like butterscotch, you probably won’t like this drink either.

On the other hand, if you are feeling adventurous, you should definitely try it out. O-So is pretty good!

Bedford currently uses pure cane sugar and bottles everything in glass across all their soda lines

Branding

Bedford’s branding seems a bit slipshod. The bottle I had had the neck sticker applied slightly off-kilter and off-center from the larger one on the bottle. The logo is fine in and of itself, but the colors aren’t bold enough to stick out from the crowd.

Taste and Ingredients

Bedford’s has a nice root beer odor when you first open the bottle, with maybe a hint of caramel. The first sip is smooth with only a little carbonation, although I wouldn’t exactly call it flat.

There is a strange flavor right as you swallow that might be attributed to gum arabic quillaia, or maybe some unnamed ingredient. I’m not sure how to describe it, except perhaps as a fake fruity or rootsy flavor.

The main components taste good, but that strange one is off-putting. I like that this is yet another soda with pure cane sugar and mostly readable ingredients.

The Wrap Up

In general, I enjoyed Bedford’s root beer offering. The drink is pretty good, other than that odd taste that you get.

Give them a try, if you can find them. Or go on vacation in Washington state. They might be easier to locate there.

Branding

The logo for Olde Brooklyn’s root beer is nice and old-fashioned. I rather enjoy the colors and the bridge. I don’t think it will catch your eye while you are walking down the aisle, except perhaps because of its old-fashioned look.

Taste and Ingredients

Old Brooklyn was completely flat when I drank mine, which means no foam and very little carbonation. It reminded me of A&W that had been left in the glass too long. The drink was creamy and tasted good, but it also felt generic and didn’t stand out.

Still, I would be happy to drink it again. It may have been flat because it was so close to its expiry date.

Other reviewers mention the drink as having a fruity odor or taste, but I didn’t notice that. However, there is yucca extract in this drink, so perhaps you will be able to discern that with your palate.

The Wrap Up

In general, this seems like a good root beer. It’s hard to find, though, and the flavor doesn’t really stand out from the others on the market. On the other hand, the taste is good instead of weird and there is no bad aftertaste.

Check it out if you can find it!

Branding

As is typical of the Liquid Death brand, they have a rotting skull on their Rootbeer Wrath drink. The colors are nice and the branding is pretty on-point. If you are looking for Liquid Death, then you’ll probably notice it as there are few other drinks that go for this look.

Taste and Ingredients

Most root beers are dark brown. However, Liquid Death’s Rootbeer Wrath is completely clear, which I suppose I should have known since it is a sparkling water drink after all.

I didn’t detect much of an odor at all from this drink. The soda water definitely has a hint of root beer to it and tastes kind of creamy. However, the aftertaste is not great.

However, when compared to the prebiotic root beers I have had, this one is head and shoulders better!

I believe the agave nectar is probably the cause of the weird aftertaste or it could be the stevia, which I have never enjoyed.

The Wrap Up

Liquid Death has fun with its drinks. I like their tag line of “Murder your thirst” and they stuck a “Recycle or Die” on the can as well, which fits their theme quite well.

The drink itself isn't my favorite, but that’s mostly because I don’t like seltzer. If I were trying to reduce my soda intake, I would consider this drink, though. You could also use it to water down other root beers, so you wouldn’t be drinking so much sugar.

You might recall Slice as a drink that used to contain up to 10% real fruit juice. It was similar to Crush or Fanta at that time, but they appear to have rebranded to go toe-to-toe with Olipop and related brands.

I believe I found this drink in Hy-Vee or Target.

Branding

Slice has maintained its logo from yesteryear and added new flavors to its line-up. The root beer maintains a dark brown coloration with a root beer mug added on.

Taste and Ingredients

This root beer contains 1% juice, likely the apple juice listed in the ingredients list.

I found the drink very flat and medicinal-tasting, with more of a root beer flavor than Olipop had. Perhaps Slice’s choice to use real cane sugar rather than Olipop’s Stevia is what makes it better. Or maybe it’s because Slice doesn’t contain all the random plant ingredients.

The Wrap Up

While Slice has made a comeback, I was not impressed with their root beer. It is probably the best pre/pro/post biotic root beer I have had so far, but that’s not saying much.

Still, it’s not completely awful, and if you’re trying to break your soda habit, this one may help you do it in a somewhat healthy manner.

Branding

The Olipop brand tends to go with an understated set of pastel colors. In Target, you can usually find single cans of Olipop near the produce section.

In general, the colors are recognizable and you shouldn’t have trouble finding it.

Taste and Ingredients

This root beer must be refrigerated, probably because of the prebiotics it contains. Olipop also uses plant fibers and botanicals in its drinks.

The smell of the drink is rather medicinal and the taste is as well. They use Stevia for sweetening, so you will probably notice a diet soda aftertaste.

Speaking of the taste, it is pretty complex. I originally thought this would be like a flavored seltzer, but it is a true soda, or close to it. However, they have a lot of plants like artichoke, chicory root, cassava root, kudzu root, marshmallow root, Nopal cactus, and Calendula flower, which makes it taste different from any other root beer I have ever had.

I didn’t enjoy the flavor much, but it was certainly interesting.

The Wrap Up

I don’t really like prebiotic or probiotic drinks, regardless of whether they claim to taste like root beer or not. However, at 40 calories, this is probably one of the least sugary root beers available. If you do like pre or probiotics, then you might like this one.

Otherwise, you might want to pass.

Branding

All of Polly’s Pop sodas include the macaw on their label. I rather like the look, and the bottle cap is fun too. They definitely have a unique look, and I like that it’s a small brand.

I almost wish the label had the same metallic look as the bottle cap.

Taste and Ingredients

While it smells alright, the flavor of Polly’s Pop root beer is rather sharp but strangely watered down. The first gulp had a strong flavor, but I wouldn’t call it root beer. There’s not really any caramel or licorice and the carbonization is quite low.

In general, I would call this fairly bland. This is the first root beer I have had that mentions containing “Root Beer Syrup”. On the plus side, they use cane sugar at least.

I do feel like the flavor comes out a bit better if you let it warm up a little rather than drinking it ice cold. It’s still not amazing, but it’s better that way.

The Wrap Up

While Polly’s Pop Root Beer is not my favorite, I enjoy supporting local brands. If you happen to be in Missouri and you come across one of their drinks, let me know what you think!

I got mine from a local Hy-Vee store, but you can also purchase Triple XXX online. According to their website, the three X’s mean that they are a top-tier product. We will see when we taste test this drink!

Branding

From a branding perspective, they mostly went with red and yellow. I do feel like it is glaring enough to sort of shout out to the casual browser.

Triple XXX also went with a brown bottle rather than a clear one, which is interesting.

Taste and Ingredients

When you first take a swig of Triple XXX Root Beer, you will get a strong flavor profile. While the ingredients don’t mention licorice or wintergreen, I feel like there is a taste of both in this root beer.

Personally, I don’t like licorice much, so this isn’t my favorite root beer right off the bat. On the other hand, if you keep sipping the drink, that flavor seems to mellow a bit. I don’t really enjoy the aftertaste, though. It reminds me a lot of a diet drink aftertaste.

The other thing to note about this drink is how flat it is. In fact, I would say it is one of the flattest root beers I’ve ever had. It’s also quite smooth.

As usual with these smaller root brews, this one is caffeine-free and made with pure sugar cane.

The Wrap Up

While I didn’t care much for the taste or the name of the root beer, it was still fun to try something different. It’s also neat that there are so many different craft root beers from the Chicago area.

Let me know what you think if you try it!

Other Chicago Root Beers

Triple XXX isn’t the only Chicago root beer. Here are a couple of others:

• Cicero Salted Caramel Root Beer

• Filbert’s Old Time Root Beer

Branding

Barq’s branding features a silver can with the Barq’s logo emblazoned on it. I can’t be sure, but they may be trying to make the drink look like a beer can with its colors.

However, this works since there aren’t many silver drinks outside of perhaps certain diet sodas.

The logo is recognizable, and you’ll find it in many restaurants and stores. Barq’s may not be as recognizable as A&W, but it’s found in many more locations.

Taste and Ingredients

Barq’s is known to have “bite”. I believe the bite comes from the fact that Barq’s is the only mainstream root beer to contain caffeine. I feel like it also has a bit more carbonation than A&W or Mug. According to Google Gemini, the caffeine content is roughly 22mg per 12 fl oz. However, the fountain version of Barq’s is often uncaffeinated.

I personally like the way Barq’s tastes. It isn’t smooth and creamy like A&W tends to be. Instead, I would call it a stronger-tasting root beer with more of a rootsy, perhaps licorice, flavor.

Unfortunately, Barq’s went with high fructose corn syrup as its primary sweetener.

The Wrap Up

I like Barq’s. If I need a little caffeine and want root beer, it’s pretty much the only player outside the energy drink market, which usually has too much or contains other ingredients I may not want in large quantities.

But let’s find out how good the root beer is!

Branding

The Wild Bill company uses a non-standard-sized, non-standard-shaped can for its soda. The root beer is packaged in an energy-drink-style can, which makes it stand out from other root beers.

Now, the colors don’t really stand out, but I liked it anyway because it just looks so different. You have a kind of Red Bull look and feel to the can, but without the red coloring.

Taste and Ingredients

Wild Bill makes a decent root beer. Interestingly, Wild Bill adds juniper, vanilla and licorice as their core flavors. The juniper gives Wild Bill a different flavor, but it isn’t a bad one.

You’ll find the drink low in carbonation and very smooth. While not quite as good as 1919 or as smooth as A&W, Wild Bill is still a nice root beer and if you like either of those, you’ll probably enjoy this one too!

The Wrap Up

In general, I liked Wild Bill’s root beer offering. It was a smooth flavor, and it’s cool that it supports America’s veterans, too.

The only downside is that you probably won’t find it in a store near you. Instead, you will need to purchase it online through Wild Bill’s website, Amazon, or some other online vendor.

A rep from World Market tried the drink out and was interested in selling it in their stores. Eventually, she went on Shark Tank and rebranded to Poppi. Amazingly enough, Poppi got popular on TikTok and was sold in stores and on Amazon right out the gate.

PepsiCo bought out Poppi in May 2025.

Which brings us to their Root Beer, which is the only drink I really care about since this is a Root Beer review website.

Branding

Personally speaking, I find the branding kind of boring. Poppi goes for pastel colors, so they don’t really stand out as a bright colored drink. On the other hand, since all their drinks have muted tones and a similar look to them, you will be able to recognize them quickly on the shelf.

Taste and Ingredients

Unfortunately, the first time you take a sip of this drink, you will find that it hits you like a gut punch. The flavor is very medicinal, probably due to the apple cider vinegar. On the other hand, you do smell the root beer odor, and there is a definite taste of root beer buried in there. You’ll also probably note some kind of minty flavor in the background, too.

Here’s a full listing of the ingredients for you to peruse:

The Wrap Up

Poppi drinks are not really my thing. This is supposed to be a healthy drink, and maybe it is when contrasted with a regular root beer. However, if you pick this up thinking it is normal root beer, you will most likely be unpleasantly surprised.

On the other hand, if you are trying to cut back on soda or need apple cider vinegar for some reason, then maybe Poppi is right for you.

You see sarsaparilla mentioned in many Western movies and TV shows, but finding the drink can be challenging. It is refreshing to find it so often now, but you still need to search for it. For example, you won’t likely find any at Wal-Mart or Target. You have to go to a grocery store, and even then, it has to have a specialty drink section.

Hy-Vee is one of the few grocery stores that seems interested in having a wide variety of speciality sodas. If you have one near you, you can probably find this drink or a different kind of sarsaparilla.

Branding

From a branding point of view, everything I have read says that the drink looks like the one in the show / game.

The logo and colors look nice. I really liked the cap. I kind of wish they had done more with that shade of red in the bottle label too.

Taste and Ingredients

When you first open the bottle, you can smell something kind of like sweet licorice. However, when you take your first mouthful, it has a medicinal taste. This is definitely not a root beer or normal sarsaparilla flavor. Maybe a cross between Coke and root beer with a more cola flavor. I have seen some commenters call it a cross between root beer and grape soda, but I don’t really taste any grape.

You get that medicinal hit right after it enters your mouth, and it lingers as an aftertaste, too. The sarsaparilla is not flat, but not as sharp as soda water either.

From an ingredients point of view, you can see that they use a lot of the same ingredients you find in root beer.

I don’t know where the weird taste comes from, except perhaps the generic “natural flavor” listed above.

The Wrap Up

All in all, I enjoyed the look and smell of the drink, but I didn’t really care for the taste. I probably wouldn’t buy this often except to try it with friends. There are much better sarsaparillas out there, such as Snake River or Sioux City. If you’d like to try a sarsaparilla, I would try one of those first.

As with many of these lesser known soda manufacturers, it is really difficult to learn anything about them. For some reason, most of these companies do not share how long they have been in business or even which state they are located in. However, the bottle I found was filled in Washington state anyway.

Branding

The branding that Jackson Hole Soda uses for their Snake River Sarsaparilla is pretty muted. It has a kind of four-color look and feel to it using a photograph that is either from antiquity or made to look that way.

You can see the olde fashioned photo below:

This look is reminiscent of Filbert’s old time root beer, although I would say that Filbert’s was more colorful than this example.

You could argue that by using this black-and-white photo, the soda may be more distinctive than its colorful brethren on the shelf. However, when you have a lot of brown bottles of root beer and sarsaparilla all lined up, I’m not sure that this helps.

Taste and Ingredients

The sarsaparilla has a more complex taste than many mainstream root beers. While there is definitely the rootsy flavor you would expect from a root beer, there is a mix of additional flavors too. I wouldn’t call it licorice or even caramel, though there is definitely a smooth flavor profile.

Snake River sarsaparilla has a bit of bite, like Barq’s. Snake River also has more carbonation than A&W or Mug seems to, but doesn’t seem to be foamy.

The smell is sweet, with a hint of root beer, but I don’t think I would necessarily characterize it as a root beer smell.

If you take a gander at the ingredients for the Sarsaparilla, you will see that it is caffiene free and uses cane sugar. Perhaps the complex taste comes from the quillaia extract? I have never seen that ingredient mentioned in a root beer before anyway.

The Wrap Up

In general, this is one of the better-tasting sarsaparillas or root beers I have had, and I would be happy to buy a 4- or 6-pack to share with friends.

You should certainly give them a try if you can find them.

Branding

The company has gone with an old-fashioned branding scheme, using a city outline as its logo. The bottle is a pretty typical dark brown.

I found it to be attractive though and it has a nice appeal overall.

Taste and Ingredients

When you first open the bottle, you get a big whiff of caramel + root beer emanating out of the soda. The drink itself is very smooth and has a strong caramel flavor. I would call it somewhat complex because while you get the strong caramel syrupy flavor right off the bat, you also get some root beer kicking in, and a kind of weird taste as you swallow that lingers on the tongue.

I think the caramel is nice, but it also makes the root beer too sweet. It even reminds me a bit of some of the butterscotch root beers I have had in the past.

On the plus side, Cicero appears to use regular cane sugar and other mostly natural ingredients while also making it caffeine-free.

Note that once again, this is a pretty flat-tasting drink. When I mentioned smooth earlier, part of that smoothness comes from the lower carbonation and partially from the caramel.

The Wrap Up

This was a decent local root beer, but the initial taste may be a bit off-putting depending on your palate. I found that it grew on me, but pfobably not one of my current favorites.

Still, it’s worth a try and who knows? I might like it better the next time I come across it.

They also make their own root beer that they sell in 12 oz bottles. You’ll have to check their website to find out when one of their trucks is near you, so you can try out this too!

Branding

I personally like Off the Hook’s logo, so the fact that they just slap a sticker on a small bottle works just fine for me. Besides, they only stock their own drinks, so they don’t have to make their drink stand out against any competition.

Taste and Ingredients

When I first poured this root beer, I noticed it didn’t produce any froth or foam. The smell is a pretty normal root beer odor, though. The first sip of the drink seemed rather complex, but subsequent sips seemed to mellow the initial impression.

I do feel like Off the Hook has a more complex flavor profile than A&W or Mug does. Overall, I enjoyed the drink, but be warned: you are paying a premium since the bottles are only 12 oz.

As usual with root beer, this one is caffeine-free. Slightly less usual is that they use triple-filtered water, though! Also note that they use cane sugar and mostly normal ingredients.

The Wrap Up

I enjoyed Off the Hook Harbor Root Beer. It has a good flavor, but it will be hard to try again since you have to find the food truck. Their business concept is interesting. How do you get fresh Alaska cod to a food truck that is driving around across multiple states anyway?

Regardless, if you happen to find Off the Hook, give them a try. They are pretty good. Oh, and be warned. The fish pieces are BIG!

I found my bottle of Faygo at a Kwik Star gas station in Ankeny, IA.

Branding

As far as branding goes, I kind of like the cartoony logo and the label’s look. The cola looks like a typical brown root beer label, and the soda's color is also the typical one you would associate with root beer.

This was a fairly large bottle at 24 oz. I really couldn’t drink all of it and it wouldn’t have been good for me to do so.

Taste and Ingredients

Faygo has a strong root beer smell, but almost no carbonation. The Faygo mix is a strong root beer flavor, but nothing really unique. Interestingly, Faygo contains both high-fructose corn syrup and sucralose though.

I would call this a generic root beer with a fairly generic flavor. Faygo’s biggest claim to fame is that it’s cheap and you get more bang for your buck than most other brands.

I do feel like it had a bit of a blah after taste as well.

Here’s a full list of ingredients:

The Wrap Up

Faygo Root Beer is not my favorite root beer. But it is far from the worst that I have had. If you need a lot of root beer for a party, you might consider this brand, as it is cheaper than many of the more popular ones.

If your audience is more discerning, though, you should do yourself a favor and just get a 1919 root beer keg. That tastes better and might even end up being the same cost or close to it in the end.