Summit Vintage Root Beer

Well hello there. In case you were wondering (or hoping), i'm not dead. Quite the contrary, my life has been so crazy and hectic that i haven't had the opportunity or even really the desire to keep up on my root beer blogging. But i figure i need to at least go through the stash in my fridge since i and my family will be moving back to Arizona next week. Yes, we have had our fill of Florida living and decided that being closer to family for my wife's sake is the best thing for us right now. As a result, i am going to shot gun out a few reviews these next couple days to get rid of the bottles of root beer i still have in my fridge (maybe 6 total). So let's get into it, shall we? This root beer is one i found at our local Aldi grocery store, which distributes this root beer out of Illinois. I think i have actually already reviewed this root beer in a 12 oz can, the difference being that this is Summit Vintage Root Beer and that is called Sudz Root Beer, brewed by Summit. I had to go back and read my review of that so i could remember what it was all about before getting into this one. I can't be certain they are the same thing, but we will discuss that in a bit.

As we all know, i prefer root beer from dark brown glass bottles, so this one is on point. If you couldn't tell from the name (which is a dead give away), the label is a throwback to the old ways of doing soda pop. It has an old time soda fountain shop look to it, though it still wreaks of being a generic soda. This came in a four pack of bottles in a card board case, not unlike IBC, which matches the label on the root beer bottle. In the end, the label is fine. It caught my eye when i passed it, which is the point of advertising, so i guess you could call it successful.

I would like to drink a can of Sudz while drinking a bottle of Vintage to see if there are any subtle differences. Part of the vintage, throwback soda trends is to sweeten with cane sugar. The box says it is sweetened with sugar, but doesn't specify cane sugar so maybe it's just processed sugar. The box also says it has a creamy blend of honey, vanilla and licorice. Honey is a no on the taste. Maybe a hint of vanilla and probably the same for a weak anise finish, but it's somewhat watery. Not overly so, but the taste is a little flat. Decent carbonation though, and in the end it's not terrible.

My official review is that Summit Vintage Root Beer gets 6 (six) IBCs. I think this is what i gave Sudz as well. Again, it would be interesting to do a side-by-side comparison of these two root beers to see how similar (or dissimilar) they are. I doubt i will find these in Arizona though since they don't have Aldi out there. If one of you wants to do the comparison and post your findings in the comments, i won't care or acknowledge them at all. After all, i'm the expert here. But go ahead, maybe some of these other dummies can benefit from your inferior opinions.