Sunday, September 12, 2010

America's Choice Root Beer

I am gonna do a quick one for this root beer. It's called America's Choice Root Beer, and it's a brand owned by the A&P grocery store chain that is popular in the Midwest and on the east coast. I had to make a deal with my root beer nemesis to get my hands on this since we don't have A&P's here in Arizona, or any of the surrounding states to the best of my knowledge, but i actually have visited an A&P about 10 years ago in Brampton, ON, Canada. All i remember is that it was kinda expensive (and considering i was using Canadian dollars and the exchange rate was much more in our favor at the time, that's saying something). So much like any grocery store, they have their own brand of sodas. The source of all truth says that the brand was started in the 1990s, so i'll go with that. And i don't have much of a website, except this link for an online shopping and pickup service for a specific A&P in New Jersey. But other than that, i didn't do much research on this thing as it's a pretty unremarkable root beer.

As you can see, it's a 2 liter bottle with a brown label with little to no imagination. There is a root beer mug decal, not unlike several other labels i have seen on different brands. The America's Choice logo is posted at the top of the label, and the flavor is typed below in big, Helvetica print (p.s. i actually watched an entire documentary about the font type Helvetica, cuz i have that kind of time). Nothing else to it though. I find myself straining to come up with a way to describe this label, and i hate to strain, so i won't. Just see for yourself in the picture above.

Ok, i know i am blazing through this post like i have other things to do, but it's true... i have other things to do (namely, video games). But you might get the impression from this half hearted review that this stuff is no good. On the contrary, this stuff is quite good. How good? A&W good. The fact that it's unremarkable is due to the fact that it tastes just like A&W. And why the heck not, right? A&W is a good root beer. I said it with Parker's and i'll say it again; if you're gonna rip off a flavor, you might as well rip off a good one. So there you have it. I don't have much else to say about this root beer.

My official review is that America's Choice gets 7 (seven) IBCs. I gave Parker's a 7 because i gave A&W a 7, and i'm giving this one a 7 because i gave Parker's a 7. It is very inexpensive from the posting on the website i linked. Only $1 for a 2 liter. But again, it's not that i didn't enjoy the taste of this root beer, there was just no originality to win me over with. Oh well, in the end it still got a very good rating (as far as my rating system goes). Congrats America's Choice. I'm probably giving you more credit than you deserve.