Santa Cruz Organic Root Beer

You must be getting tired of these natural root beers, but i only have a couple more to review. This one is called Santa Cruz Organic Root Beer. Santa Cruz Natural is a company dedicated to making several products, from fruit juices to peanut butter, using organic sources. The company is based in Chico, CA and has been around since the early 1970s. In addition to making products from all natural sources, Santa Cruz Organic is a big proponent of the green movement. I think up until now i have made myself fairly clear about my stance on hippies, but i rarely (if ever) mention anything about the green movement, which was started primarily by hippies (or more-so, the children of hippies). This might offend people, but i think we can all agree my influence in the root beer circles excuses my opinions that some may find offensive. Anyway, let's start this with a question. "Hey Cosmo, how do you feel about the green movement?" Well, i'll tell you. The green movement is a marketing scheme. The word "green" to me is synonymous with "expensive". Have you noticed that "green" products are usually more expensive than their "non-green" competitive counterparts? I thought going green was supposed to save money. Why does saving the Earth have to be so expensive? Seriously? And why has EVERYTHING turned green in the past three to five years? Because it's a marketing scheme, that's why. They guilt you into saving the planet by buying more expensive "green" products. I'm sick of green products. Now before you work yourself into a tizzy, let me make myself clear; I'm not saying you should go out and club a baby seal and pour oil all over it's dead body. I'm just saying get off my back if once in a while i like to unwind by dumping toxic waste on a pile of kittens. Hey, it's my prerogative. I'm an American! Anyway, sorry about that. Let's talk about root beer some more. The can it came in has a very basic design. The color scheme is composed of green and white for all the soda flavors, and there is a picture of the plant of flavor of the soda somewhere on the can. The root beer has a picture of a couple old barrels of root beer made from real organic wood sources, or at least they should be or Santa Cruz is a dirty liar. The rest of the can is covered in text, mostly about being organic and natural and all of that. It's basic and simple, and i am impartial to it. It doesn't jump out at me and i am not repulsed by it. Not much else to say about it really. My only other experience with a self proclaimed "organic" root beer ended very badly, so i was expecting the worst when i popped the top on this sucker. I was relieved to find that it's not as terrible as i was led to believe all organic root beers are, but it's still very typical tasting of a natural root beer. It has light carbonation and is sweetened with something called "organic evaporated cane juice", which actually has it's own website. The root beer taste is really quite subtle, and the after taste is basically non-existent. It almost reminds me of Olde Rhode Island Root Beer, in that the taste disappears after drinking it so quickly. Plus, it has a taste that reminds me of herbal tea. Basically all i end up really tasting in the end is the sugar and herbal tea taste. And the big kicker is that the root beer itself is actually clear. Yup, it's like the Crystal Pepsi of root beer.

My official review is that Santa Cruz Organic Root Beer gets 3 (three) IBCs. Like i said, i am leaning more toward putting it in the same category as Olde Rhode Island, but being a natural/organic soda, i'm coming down on it a little harder than i did with ORI. It doesn't taste bad, but it's completely unimpressive. Plus, it's affiliation with the green movement isn't helping it's reputation any...