Birch beer
Big Ben's BLUE Birch Beer Soda
Big Ben's (Catawissa Bottling Works) · Blue birch beer (cane-sugar, color-novelty)
Catawissa, Pennsylvania, USA
A novelty among an already regional category: a vivid blue birch beer that Catawissa has bottled in Pennsylvania since the brand's 1920s roots. The cane-sugar build leans sweet and "rich and robust," with the cool methyl-salicylate lift of birch and wintergreen riding over a faint caramel backbone rather than a creamy vanilla one. The electric-blue dye is pure showmanship and adds nothing to the palate, but the underlying birch character is honest and clean. A crowd-pleaser for its color and sweetness more than a connoisseur's pour.
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The maker
Big Ben's is the house soda line of the Catawissa Bottling Company, a fourth-generation, family-owned bottler founded by the Gregorowicz family in 1926 after they converted a Catawissa creamery into a soda works. The company still bottles its proprietary Big Ben's sodas (and contract-bottles Moxie) at that original Pennsylvania location, sweetening its drinks with pure cane sugar. The BLUE Birch Beer is a clear, bright-blue twist on the regional birch beer tradition.
Ingredients & nutrition
Carbonated water, Pure cane sugar, Natural and artificial flavor, Caramel, Red #40 or Blue #1.
8 fl oz · 110 cal · 23 g sugar(per serving, as labeled)