Pepsi Citrus Freeze and Doritos Jalapeno Fire

Few events can get one as excited as the parcel delivery I received on tuesday.

Move over other superheroes we have two new superheroes in town, and at least one of them has some pretty funky ginger curly hair, in my opinion the most super of all hair. Introducing the new Doritos and Pepsi Max flavour, wondrous on their own but together a true gargantuan superpower.

Lets get the aesthetics out of the way first and foremost below shows the packaging of the two new products

The Doritos have a sleek black packet with scorching fire trailblazing across the packet where as the Pepsi Max bottle hasn't change too much aside from a green lid and green font on the label. The Pepsi bottle is 600ml for anyone wondering.


To make things interesting I assumed the role of a super villain crazed by blood lust and a desire for fizzy drinks. I cackled as I cast the Pepsi Max Citrus to my chilled box of death to await his death when he had reached the optimum temperature and turned my attention to the crunchy little ginger fellow that was with him.

I cackled with maniacal laughter as landed a crushing blow opening the bag and showing the pretenders tasty entrails. A strong scent filled the air, similar to that of Flaming Hot Monster Munch so without trepidation I attacked scoffing a handful of the Doritos. I was met with a flavour closer to Flamin Hot Monster Munch than the other chilli Doritos with what felt like the tingle of citrus. It was like a flame roasted salsa but then came the bit I wasn't expecting, the action that rocked me and turned this encounter on it's head, genuine heat. Not horrible hot, not something that would put you off the crisps but something that's a background heat and rouses your tongue from it's hum-drum slumber.

With my senses rocked and my mouth tingling with heat I decided I needed to end this so I was transported to my ICE PRISON to fetch the Green prisoner. This wasn't going to be drawn out the last skirmish with his partner had left me worried and shaken I needed to end this quickly before anymore suprises snuck up on me.

I looked him right in the eye, under the watchful gaze of my vanilla cupcake candle henchman (err ignore that please I got a rep to maintain), Lime flavoured eh? Reckon you can somehow simulate the taste of a nice slice of fruit in my cola? You're not in a cafe now son, many have tried and most have failed *COUGH COKE WITH LEMON COKE WITH LEMON COUGH* I am disgusted with you and I won't take any pleasure in this....or so I thought.

I opened the Pepsi Max victory was sure to be mine and took a gulp. A slight kick of lime comes of it but it's slight enough that it doesn't taste chemically and artificial, perhaps it's because of Pepsi Maxs normal flavour notes that it feels more at home but this is a really sensationally well done coke with citrus product and then came the bit I was not prepared for. The stunning 1-2 that brought me to my knees, the ice cold Pepsi soothed my tongue and eased the eat, for a second before the citrus took over and then kind of tickles it. I see why they have the imagery of the fire and ice. The Doritos start the fire and it's this citrus ice that kind of sneaks up on you, first of all it's the coldness and that's fantastic and then because you're relaxing the little kick of citrus works brilliantly.


Honest impressions of both I would say
Doritos :- Great. My new favourite flavour of Doritos. If this is only a short term product I can already nod you in the direction of a replacement. The fire roasted chilli tortilla chips from Marks and Spencers rock a similar vibe. 8/10 really tasty

Pepsi Citrus Freeze :- I was worried. Coke and Citrus normally doesn't work but somehow here it does. I think it subtly adds to the Pepsi Max flavour but I would wonder how well it may translate if it's not really cold. When cold it's great, it's a great addition and could be very interesting alongside mexican food with its lime flavour. 9/10

So what's next

Well as you can probably read there's going to be an online comic book that follows the two heroes and there is going to be a competition running in the uk to win a trip to Vegas or Iceland (assuming not the supermarket). See their website for details on that

From a completely nerdy point of view would I be the only one willing to rock a t-shirt? I really like the artwork. That box is something I'm going to keep for a long time as it reminded me of the day I met my match, a 1-2 combination from snack food superheroes that left me reeling.

Pepsi Max + Doritos Fire Update

Just a very quick teaser update

Box received

Looks like this

I am too excited to function. Will have more details later

Doritos Pepsi-Max CrossOver

So yesterday on facebook Pepsi Max asked for 100 pesi max fans to sample their new Dorito crossover "powerful combination of Doritos Fire and Pepsi Max Citrus Freeze! " and I am in.

Hopefully taking deliver of the bundle of joy soon.


This was the FB Message

Pepsi Max

Guess what?! We’ve teamed up with our fave snack Doritos to forge a super-powerful combination, Doritos Fire and Pepsi Max Citrus Freeze!

We want you LEGENDS to be the first to try, so make sure you’re in the first 100 people to send your email address to mates@pepsimaxmates.co.uk and tell us why you deserve a pack!

Also they posted some pretty sweet recipes. May be trying this carrot cake soon

Hurrah

Thorncroft Healthy Thirst Cherry

In every way this is a grown up soft-drink. Bottle, packaging, ingredients and taste. All of which are superb. No added sugar with all the sweetness, and there is a good amount of it, coming from the fruit juice. It's a mixture of grape juice, YES, and cherry juice. Due to costings it's heavier on the grape juice but my goodness you wouldn't mind.

The taste is intoxicating and it starts with the first smell. It smells so sweet and fruity and inviting it's a wecloming or almost beckoning invite to taste it.

The flavour itself is really strong and robust. Naturally sweet and therefore not sickly in the slightest.

You should really try this if you're looking for something a bit more grown up. Thorncroft have created something here that embodies everything that is good about the UK soft drink market. For any international readers you should make a note to seek this out. I think it's worth it.

I will be getting myself down to Holland and Barret and any other local stockists to look for other flavours. This is highly recommended.

Mongoose Beer

Our first Beer review ever.

WOW.


What would drive us to such insane new heights. Simple an amazing bottle design and concept.

Mongoose is a premium Indian Beer. It tastes good, it's crisp and clean. It is not named after those bloody adverts though of course not, this is where it's brilliant, it's named and designed to let you know it is a Cobra killer.

The bottle even has a picture of a dead cobra in the mouth of the champion Mongoose. It's so blatant and emotive that it's brilliant. I'm not even sure you can do anything about it.

It has lead to a beer hierarchy which will be ever evolving

Kingfisher < Cobra < Mongoose < GODZILLA BEER (http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=33555)


So there you have it a new easy system to remember which beers are better than other beers.

BORING TALES FROM MY HOLIDAY 1 :- RED CUPS

I went to Galway for a bit yesterday. For those of you unaware Galway is in the Republic of Ireland. I live in Northern Ireland. For those of you who don't understand the difference in the countries it's a bit like North and South Korea, only in reverse. Before anyone gets too upset about that I would like to point out that a lot of shops down south didn't seem to have Dr.Pepper. So I think it's a fair point.

I was excited to try some new things in this strange country but to be honest we're largely homogenized now into having the same products. If anything we seem like we possibly get more trial products (launches special editions etc) probably because we are the same currency as the rest of the UK and quite a small market. The main issues of contention with us are Tayto, this will not be discussed here, I have grand plans for that later on in the year.

I did notice one thing and it made me a bit sad.

http://www.redcups.ie/aboutus.html


The humble red cup. The indicator of parties the world over, well no the indicator of parties in America and American films which means it's recognised and known in most of the western world as the symbol for Parties so they've started selling them in Ireland.

I found this a little sad. It's an iconic design of course but surely it's ok for us to have a bit of a national identity of our own?

This isn't an attack on the guys selling them, fair play to you both but I think as cheesey as it may be it might have even been nice if they were green....



Also to be fair to the Republic they do still seem to have Quiznos which dissapeared from local streets due to the amazing popularity of Subway here.

Have I missed a special Republic of Ireland treat? We now get Carmello, Golden Crisp and the other Dairy Milk specialities here via Centra. I think Finches is even more prevalent here than in it's home nation.

KA Black Grape :- Planet of the Grapes

Undeterred by my confusion at the Karibbean Kola drink I had just sampled I ploughed on. I'm no hero, just an average, incredibly handsome and modest, man who drinks and eats stuff and then writes about it on the internet.

KA Black Grape. Ohhh mercy. I love Grape flavour. Infact we've talked about this a little before, http://fizzness.blogspot.com/search?q=graped+crusader, but I really do love it. I may be the Kel of Grape Soda.

Firstly the colour of this is incredible. It's like the grape Jolly Rancher colour. Yes that deep and that purple. It smells brilliant and it tastes fantastic. Grape-tastic.

Buy this. Is it better than Bigga Grape Soda? It's different. As good. It has grape in it. Does that help? I like Grape. I do grape now


Ohh and look at this list of KA drinks. http://www.agbarr.co.uk/agbarr/newsite/ces_brands.nsf/brands/brands-ka_sparkling_black_grape!opendocument
There's loads including strawberry. God Bless you AG BARR you loveable scamps. I'm coming to drink it all

Karibbean Kola

WHO AM I? THIS ISNT MY FACE! Not my words but the words of an innocent soft drink who appears to have had his identity stolen in a Cage/Travolta Face-off type way. This is the odd case of Karibbean Kola, that's right genuine KOLA from the KARIBBEAN.

I picked up a bottle of each of KAs flavours this week from my local tesco but was most excited about this Kola. One 500ml bottle seems to indicate it would account for something like 80% of my daily recommended sugar intake. How could this be a bad thing you ask! What could go wrong...... I'm not sure it's cola.

I opened the bottle and took a smell expecting the wonderous hit you get from a nice cola flavour but no this was a little different. It didn't smell like cola at all, infact it sort of smelt like those tremendous teeth destroying life affirming chew bars you used to get as a child. Never mind I said perhaps I'm getting phantom smell syndrome from too many blows to the head and so sampled the nectar inside. Err confused. This doesn't taste like cola at all, it tastes like Irn Bru.

Huh?

I check the back and low and behold it's only made by AG BARR isn't it! I love Barr, I am really happy to see a return of their cans to a few local convenience stores as they always pack a flavour but for me this is all a bit confusing.

Can anyone shed any light on this? Is it popular in the Caribbean community? I mean this was in the world food aisle of the supermarket yet as far as I can tell it's made by a scottish company and only sold here in the UK.

This was an odd dissapointment. Anyone else only able to taste Irn Bru?

Old Jamaica Ginger Beer

Hello back from holiday. Well I am back, Gerry wasn't with me as we don't holiday together. We did once and I still cannot handle the smells of Peach Schnapps, just realising how homo-erotic our holiday is now sounding. Err no comment

This week I conclude my quest for the best ginger beer and after my disappointment at Levi Roots’ Fiery Urine (he best get a test) I thought I’d give the Caribbean another chance to represent yo, thankfully I did as this drink restored my faith in all things ginger.

I know next to nothing about Old Jamaica Ginger Beer other than I’ve seen it popping up in quite a few places, so assume its doing well, and that it has one ugly looking can.

Seriously it looks like a can of supermarket own-brand special brew larger and the 2 Litre bottle look even worse, like the kind of plastic cider bottle that old trampy Jimmy used to swig from as he ran his hand through his curlies in the street.

But as your mother always told you it’s what’s inside that counts (Jimmy had the soul of an angel) and inside this ugly can is one beautiful drink. The ginger is spicy, very spicy actually but never over powering and is complimented with the right amount of sweetness. There is a nice fruity tang too but it’s quite subtle so never gets in the way and nor does the lovely low level of carbonation.

Everything just works together so well it feels effortless and relaxed and after a hard days work it really went down a treat. This is exactly what a ginger beer should be, relaxing, comforting, something that evokes a childhood spent in a Victorian seaside resort or in this case Trenchtown Kingston.

Compared to the Barr’s (cheap and cheerful) and Levi Roots (bland) this is light years ahead and has to be considered one of the best ginger beers out there. I cant recommend this one enough, buy it, drink it, and let Jimmy run his hand through your curlies.

Holiday

Hey on holidays for a few days. Hopefully have some new treats to share with you all when we get back. Take it easy

Levi Roots Fiery Ginger Beer

There seems to be a real Caribbean vibe to the site at the minute and as an honorary Jamaican, (I have a Bob Marley Best Of compilation, supported the reggae boys in World Cup 98 and throw acid in the faces of my enemies) I thought I’d get in on the action.

A few days ago P-Walk was non-fussed by Levi Roots’ Caribbean Crush and mentioned that the sauce monger had a new Ginger Beer out, and seeing as I have already reviewed a Scottish Ginger Beer this week I thought I’d see what ma Rasta brethren had to offer in comparison.
The first thing I have to mention is that I picked a 2 litre bottle of this for £1 at Poundland, lovely, lovely Poundland. I’m not sure if this is going to be the standard price when it rolls out across the nation or if it is just one of those crazy deals Poundworld seems to have a knack for negotiating, but at £1 for 2ls the pricing is a big plus point.

Packaging wise the bottle is well branded in the Reggae Reggae colours, which makes good business sense but to me personally made it hard to shake the thought that I was just about to drink a chilled pint of Jerk Chicken Sauce.

Drinking a pint of Jerk Chicken sauce might’ve actually made for a more interesting experience.

As a Ginger Beer it does exactly what it says on the bottle ‘Fiery Ginger Beer with Honey and Lime’ and yep it is a fiery ginger beer with a honey aftertaste and a lime kick, but it just doesn’t cut it for me. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what is missing, the spice level is generous the honey balances it out nicely and the lime makes for an interesting, although slightly misplaced twist. All the ingredients are there for what should be a great drink but it just doesn’t gel. I think I was just expecting something more. When a drink like this launches, with a high profile name behind it, it really needs to be something special to step out of the shadow of its branding, and sadly this drink is nothing special.

I love Levi Roots, I really do and am a big fan of his guitar playing sauce pimping ways but it seems he has taken a step too far with his move into the soft drinks market. Put some music in my glass? No thanks blud.
P.s My faith in all things Jamaican have been restored by another drink I will review later in the week.

Jammin Pineapple Drink

Jamaican
Aspirations
May
Mean
Insulin
Needed


This is the sweetest drink I've had in a while. I mean wow it's very very sweet. It's also very very tastey. It somehow tastes sweeter than American Mountain Dew, which is syrup like, and it pounds in at 12.9g of sugar per 100ml. That's 30% more than Coca-Cola and you can taste it.

I have a stupidly sweet tooth though and I liked it. It's very pineappley and I'm not sure of another top notch pineapple drink out there that's available in this size, C&C pineappleade in 2 litre form might just keep the crown though.

This is available in most tescos in the world food isle but if the black grape flavour is there I'ld maybe lean you a bit more towards it

Tayto D'Lite Oriental Rib Flavour

Right so according to the Tayto website and the world wide web as a whole these do not exist.


They do exist though as I ate some. I was given them at the IFA office as a bribe I assume for going to watch Northern Ireland lose to Serbia, sometimes it feels like part of the reason for going is the free tayto.

As their existence is denied I do not have an official snap yet so I'll say it looks very like the cheese and onion packet shown below.

I'm a Vegetarian, I know right?, and am a bit weird about meat flavoured crisps. I know, it's silly as I'm not even a 'ethical' vegeterian but still I am a little strange about it so I was pleasantly suprised that the Oriental Rib Flavoured crisps were in fact suitable for vegetarians like myself. The flavour is inspired by the Asian barbecue rub that would be put on the ribs rather than trying to capture the ribs flavour themselves.

I guess this is because they think people might be a little confused by a crisp that was 'Asian Barbecue' flavour.

Right before we get onto the flavour its important to know these are a low calorie snack item so it's only fair that when we judge the taste we compare them to snacks around the same sort of range, the likes of snack-a-jacks/ pomme bears and things of that ilk.

The first thing about the taste that will hit you is aniseed. It's big and it's powerful and it's not going to be for everyone but it's a brilliant way to have the flavour of Chinese 5 Spice that's been cooked. After that there is a sweetness from the paprika and garlic flavourings.

Personally I like it and it's great to see a lower calorie snack that isn't scrimping on flavour. I have a feeling the aniseed might put a few people off but these are definitely worth a try

Rockstar Energy Cola

Rockstar energy cola. It looks like this

I'll be honest this is a cool looking can and it's a 500ml can so it towers above most others. It's the kind of thing that a designated driver you could get away with drinking at a house party without looking like a dick. That's a good thing, a really good thing.

Now onto the important bit how does it taste? Well that's hard to say, do you judge as a cola or as an energy drink?

As a cola it's maybe a little soft tasting. It tastes like a carbonated tip top or big time cola drink carton. Remember those things? Amazing. So it's not a bad taste, far from it it's nice and as an energy drink it's quite good that it doesn't slap your face about in an effort to gee you up. So we're kind of in a quandry as a cola I think you could do better for an impactful cola taste but as an energy drink it's mild enough thats its genuinely drinkable without face contrortions on every sip.

It's probably fairest to stand it up against Red Bull Cola, and whilst the flavour isnt as strong as the Reb Bull version it's preferrable. At a time were Red Bull are pulling their Cola from the US market we have a drink that's maybe found a way to make an energy cola a realistic drink.

That's pretty cool. This drink is pretty cool and I think I might be starting to change my impression on Energy Drinks

Screme Egg Review

Here at Fizzness we love each other. A lot. I would take a bullet for G-Pez and he took a figurative bullet for me. I saw the cadburys screme egg recently and felt incredibly sad. Since it took a hiding from the Malteeser Bunny and became only the 2nd best Halloween treat going (screw that 3rd Mini Eggs on a roll son) its become a confused depressed husk of a man. Now it's desperately trying to attach itself to the national holiday for perverts, Halloween. How dare you Cadbury. How dare you

Oh look an exciting new variation of the Easter treat that is the Cadburys Crème Egg is out just in time for Halloween (well 8 weeks before)! What a delightful pun they’ve used in the name and what spooky packaging it has, all very seasonal! I wonder what differentiates this from a normal Crème Egg? Oh look it has green goo instead of the usual yellow, and um… that’s it.

Yep it’s a green crème egg, that’s it that’s all ive got, they’ve changed the yellow to green with some food colouring. Brilliant work.

I can understand them bringing out a Halloween themed treat, everyone does it but they could’ve at least made some effort, maybe done a limited edition lime flavour to tie in with the green colouring? Chocolate and lime go together quite well but no, just green dye.

I’m a big fan of the standard Crème Egg it’s an over sweet sugar explosion that can sometimes be too much but it only appears for 3 months a year so everyone tries to eat as many as they can before they disappear. This is a huge part of their charm, their limited availability, something which Cadburys is doing its best to ruin these days. Every year it seems they appear on the shelves earlier and earlier, I’ve seen shops stocking them before Christmas and this is ridiculous. If Crème Eggs were available all year round they wouldn’t be anywhere near as popular and by ever expanding their window of availability they are starting to loose their appeal.

This Halloween edition, with no new flavour at all, seems to be the tipping point into over saturation for me, if I can get a Crème Egg at Halloween, Christmas and Easter where’s the fun? Like a good friend once said (well Gary from Men Behaving Badly): ‘If there’s always biscuits in the tin then where’s the fun in biscuits?’

Maroon 5 in odd Drink Idea

Soda endorsement is a funny business. We've seen drinks today with Caribbean figures of Levi Roots and Bob Marley adorning the labels. One of the newest ones, and oddest, is also one of the most worthwhile. Maroon 5 are launching "Tea will be loved" playing on one of their most famous song titles with Snapple with charitable causes in mind.

We'll try and get our hands on some for a review soon but below is the announcement from their website (http://www.maroon5.com/news_detail/snapple_and_maroon_5_release_new_tea_will_be_loved_iced_tea_to_benefit_feed/)

 Snapple and Grammy award-winning pop-rock band Maroon 5 have partnered to launch ‘Tea Will Be Loved’ – a delicious blend of healthy green tea and tasty black tea with notes of pomegranate and berries. Tea Will Be Loved will benefit Feeding America, helping to provide 1,750,000 meals to those in need. Inspired by the unique personalities of the band members and named for their smash-hit “She Will Be Loved,” this limited release Snapple tea will be available at participating retailers nationwide beginning on September 1, 2011.

Tea Will Be Loved is a five-fruit mash-up of the best stuff on Earth, with each band mate choosing their own flavor to add to the tea: pomegranate, orange, blackberry, raspberry and hibiscus. Tea Will Be Loved features 13 specially marked gold Snapple caps with Real Facts about Maroon 5 and Feeding America, such as Real Fact #682: Maroon 5’s former name was “Kara’s Flowers.” The band also contributed to the graphic design of the packaging for the new tea.

As part of the partnership, Snapple and Maroon 5 will donate $250,000 to Feeding America. Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger relief charity, provides low-income individuals and families the resources they need to survive and even thrive. Feeding America’s member network supplies food to more than 37 million Americans each year, including 14 million children and three million seniors.

Marleys Mellow Moods

I'm not going to lie, I can't these blog posts are taken under oath, when I first saw  Marley's Mellow Mood drinks in the fridges of my local drink emporiums I thought it was another energy drink. It's only on closer inspection that I realised that this couldn't be further from the truth and it was infact THE ANTI-ENERGY DRINK. It's a relaxtion drink to 'reduce stress and relieve tension' so during a particularly gnarling week at work I decided I could maybe do with mellowing out a little.

Ice Cold Can in hand I decided to check the back. May cause drowsyness it says... interesting. Chamomile tea for relaxation and rose hips for vitamin A, B and C. So I opened it up and had a good smell of it. You can smell the lemon coming through a little so I decided to take an extra big swig as the early morning email check had maybe caused a little more tension.

The first thing is the taste is a little odd, it's different and it caught me off guard. It's very botanical and the nearest thing I could say it tasted like would be a whiskey cocktail or something like a hot whiskey with lemon and honey.

It's not very carbonated and you can taste the chamomile tea coming through, the lemon flavour is a bit out there. It tastes almost synthesised or as if you were tasting incense being burned. Does that make sense?

The taste itself isn't unpleasant. It's just so different it takes you a while to adjust to it, I also thought it had quite a powerful kick to the aftertaste, something which funnily enough impacts a lot of energy drinks as well. For me it made the drink a less relaxing experience, the kick of the flavour made each gulp seem a little more charged.

That said and I don't know if it's because I'm very open to suggestion, and I am, but I did feel a bit more relaxed and sleepy. Which was suprising as I didn't expect it to work at all but it did to an extent. I'm considering having a few cans in the house for nights after football or whatever when your body and brain just doesn't want to turn in for the night.

Could this be love? I don't know at the minute we're just jammin and seeing where it takes us. I'm quite keen to try the other flavours and see if there's something a bit closer to what I'm looking for.

Check out their website and if you're a fan join their revolution and celebrate one of the first 'Anti-Energy Drinks' http://www.marleybeverages.com/

Great concept, really interesting but not sure if this flavour is fully for me but I did see some results.

Levi Roots Caribbean Crush

Ahh Levi Roots. What a man. Levi Roots is such a fantastically likeable man that I recently managed to stomach close to 15 minutes of Jamie Olivers new cooking programme just because Levi Roots was on it. Yep he might be the cure for the common Jamie Oliver.

With this in mind you could probably guess that I was pretty excited about the prospect of LEVI ROOT BRANDED SOFT DRINKS. Yeah that deserves capital letters as this was a capital idea from the minds of Vimtos finest.

Levi was brinking out 3 drinks a Reggae Reggae Tomato Juice Drink (and some other juice drinks it must be said), err ok maybe not for me that one, a Ginger Beer (which we hope to have G-PEZ review soon) and one that was right up my alley, so to speak, Carribean Crush. A Reggae Reggae take on Lilt.

Carribean Crush proposes itself to be a tropical blend of mango, grapefruit and pineapple so yeah we're on pretty safe ground to assume we're looking at a Lilt type deal here. Lilt is a mix of Pineapple and Grapefruit so unless we're mangoed up to the hilt here it should be pretty similar.

I opened my nicely branded 500ml bottle and it is nicely branded. It jumps off the shelf at you and I have noticed it getting a little traction with customers locally as I'm seeing the bottles about a lot. More the Crush than Ginger Beer but still it's nice to see a new brand taking off and I think that's largely down to the man behind the brand.

First things first it smells like Lilt it's that tropical welcoming smell. First taste and the carbonation seems similar to Lilt, which is deliberately less carbonated than other Coke products to make the drink seem more relaxed. The grapefruit and pineapple are instantly recognisable, the mango a little less so. The pineapple after taste is strong and rides out well but then you're hit with another after taste one of dissapointment.

It tastes like an own brand version of Lilt. It doesn't feel like it has it's own identity or flavour to it, maybe side by side you could appreciate mango a little bit more but as it is it's feels like an impersonator. The looks there and it all seems right but deep down you know it's just not the real thing.

One thing that has come out of this is though that Lilt are bringing out a new Mango flavour to counteract this, so they've got someone rattled. I think if possible they should see if they can reinvent the flavour a little maybe by adding papaya or blood orange even if just to change the colour and outlook of the drink.

Sorry Levi Roots, I am dissapoint

You're Barred : - Barrs Ginger Beer review by a Ginger Bear

G-NOTE or as I like to call him Gerry "Pez" Peterson has delicately reviewed a powerful ginger beer and possibly got us both banned from Scotland for life. God bless him. Here's his review

I am a big fan of Ginger Beer, I am also ginger, I’m not sure if there is a relationship here but I though I would get this interesting fact out of the way before I started my review.
Another interesting fact is that Barr’s, Scotland’s biggest home-grown soft drink company, have a strong relationship with Gingers. Firstly they are from Scotland, the Ginger capital of the world, secondly they make Irn Bru, the fuel of all Ginger’s and thirdly they have recently launched a tinned version of their Ginger Beer. (See all this Ginger talk was leading somewhere.)
The new tin forms part of a range of budget soft drinks launched by Barr’s and having given them all a try they are head and shoulders above other similarly priced beverages, (lets be honest 35p drinks usually taste like fizzy water and sweeteners), but the Ginger Beer really stands out.
I’ll get this over with first, don’t be expecting a genuine ginger beer, it only cost 35p you cheap bastard, if you want to have a spice induced eye pop then stump up the cash for a bottle of Fentiman’s.
What you get instead is a ginger flavoured soda, and a good one at that. The balance between the sweetness and the ginger is perfect, the ginger is strong but not over powering. After each gulp there is a pleasant spicy buzz that covers up any cheap after taste that budget drinks usually have and most of all its tasty, damn tasty. It’s not going to please a connoisseur but for everyone else it really is a rewarding drink.
I cant recommend this one enough, its cheap and cheerful but like an Irn Bru fuelled angry ginger Scot it packs a strong punch (and possibly likes to beat its wife.)