Thirteen of us at the workplace soda-tasting crew tried nine different birch beers this afternoon. Wish we could’ve found more (A-Treat, Hank’s & Briar’s especially), but we are on the fringe of the birch beer region so we really had to dig to get what we had. After the ballots were counted, the winners and losers were easy to pick. Boylan’s Creamy Red is No. 1 by a landslide followed by Kutztown and Weis Red. Giant Main Street and Super Chill (bargain/store brands) scored lowest, followed by Sioux City. The Weis store brands were very good, especially the red. Overall, much less variation in taste than in the root beer taste test we had. The data:

BRAND TOP 3 NO. 1 POINTS

BOYLAN'S RED 13 7 20
KUTZTOWN 10 3 13
WEIS RED 7 1 8
PA DUTCH 5 1 6
BOYLAN'S ORIG 4 1 5
SIOUX CITY 0 0 0
SUPER CHILL 0 0 0
WEIS WHITE 0 0 0
GIANT MAIN ST 0 0 0

TOTAL 39 13 52

BRAND BOTTOM 3 NO. 9 POINTS

GIANT MAIN ST 11 8 19
SUPER CHILL 9 2 11
SIOUX CITY 7 2 9
WEIS WHITE 6 0 6
BOYLAN'S ORIG 3 1 4
PA DUTCH 2 0 2
KUTZTOWN 1 0 1
BOYLAN'S RED 0 0 0
WEIS RED 0 0 0

TOTAL 39 13 52

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\"With thousands of sodas available for the choosing, why drink just one or two?\"

Boylan's is top notch, glad to see it won.

Found some sodas that you could have used in your tastings - I wasn't aware that McCutcheon's (located in Frederick MD, and mostly known for their apple products, but sell a lot of other fruit stuff as well) sold sodas. They aren't mentioned on the website, so they are possibly discontinued, but I bought them at a store that just opened within the past few months (in an old Wawa). They also had a cream, but that's not my thing, so I passed. The bottles say "Brewed & Bottled for McCutcheon's" - but there are no identifying marks as to who brewed and bottled them. Maybe Flying Dog Brewery, it's also located in Frederick.

They refer to them as premium reserve sodas, but the only thing really premium is that they use sugar, not hfcs. Instead of listing extracts or oils in the ingredients, they just say "natural and/or artificial flavors." Not a good sign.



McCutcheon's Preserves, Jams Jellies, Apple Butter and Much More!

Ditto, they do everything top-notch; cane sugar, proprietary bottle, painted label. How many others have "pure birch oils" in their ingredients? No short cuts here: Boylan Bottling Co. | Official Website

Did you see they have a 16oz bottle now?

McCutheons has a place in Pennsylvania that bottles their soda for them. I can't rememeber the name of it right now. They don't bottle it here in Frederick.