The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company was once the US’s largest supermarket chain, boasting up to 16000 stores in the 1930s. Today, they’ve declined to about 450 stores, mainly in the NY/NJ area. My Dad, who helps fuel my root beer addiction (and perhaps is the root (pun intended) cause of it) found a four pack of this root beer at Big Lots when shopping with my Mom. For those of you who don’t know, Big Lots is a great place to find weird and discontinued beverages. Dad was pretty excited to find this, as he grew up drinking it purchased from his local A&P.

I haven’t asked him his opinion yet (especially after I gave him some Maine Root in exchange for this), but I was pretty disappointed.  There’s basically just no flavor here.  The beverage overall has little flavor, and what is there doesn’t have the traditional, or even innovative, root beer flavor, but tastes more like flat Dr. Pepper does.  Juxtapose this with pretty heavy carbonation for a “draft” style root beer, and you’ve got basically flavorless dark carbonated sweet water made with high fructose corn syrup.  No Thanks.

Monthly Root Beer Rating: 2