Bottle and Label: Clear bottle and blue label make it easy to distinguish on a shelf crowded with brown bottles and labels.
Ingredients: Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sucrose, caramel color, sodium benzoate, citric acid, caffeine, artificial and natural flavors, acacia.
Smell: Smell is weak and it is difficult to distinguish any noticeable characteristics. There seems to be a bit of wintergreen smell, but it is very weak.
Carbonation: Very little carbonation leaves this brew tasting flat.
Color: Pleasing, dark brown color that is slightly transparent.
Head: Very tall head that also dissipates very quickly
Flavor: Barq’s root beer has a very mainstream flavor in that it is hard to find much in it to really savor. Much like the carbonation, the flavor is flat and leaves a slightly metallic aftertaste. There is not much else to say. Barq’s simply misses the mark in the flavor department.
Conclusion: Barq’s is one of those brews I drank as a kid when my parents would occasionally buy cases of it to drink on hot summer days on the farm. As a kid on a hot day, Barq’s was just fine. Well, times have changed. Barq’s is a mainstream root beer, but it falls short of my standard mainstream root beer, A&W. A&W, despite being largely artificial, still tastes pretty good. Barq’s is simply bland and has no redeeming qualities. This is one brew where I can, without hesitation, say avoid this beverage.
RBR’s Grade- F

Bottle and Label: It’s a keg! Same basic design as the Virgil’s bottles. Well done, traditional, and it looks good on the keg.
Bottle and Label: Brown bottle with a classy blue and black label that is different from many bottles and makes it easy to spot on a crowded shelf.
Bottle and Label: Brown bottle with nicely designed label that attests to the origins of this brew (Maine). It looks like something you would find on a pier on the Maine coastline.






Bottle and Label: Brown bottle with a long neck. The label is nicely designed and suitably antique looking for a brew that claims to have been around since 1869.
Bottle and Label: Red Ribbon Root Beer has a clear bottle and simple, nondescript label.
Bottle and Label: Saint Arnold Root Beer has nice label that looks different than its counterparts. This is probably because the brewery did the label with the same overall design that it does with its non-root beer beverages. The well designed label will make this brew easy to spot on a crowded shelf.