At this point, we’ve tried just about every soda flavor out there. We ranked colas, juicy and sweet cherry sodas, miscellaneous fruit sodas, from orange to strawberry to lemon-lime, and complex root beers. We’ve even hit up mineral waters and seltzers! If it’s fizzy, it’s safe to say that we’ve tried it — which brings us to our last and final big blind soda taste test (for now!)…
Ginger Beer. Not ginger ale, we’re talking about just the good stuff. If you’re not aware of the difference, you’re missing out. Ginger ale is fine — it’s carbonated water, a lot of sugar, and some ginger flavoring (usually artificial). We’re not dunking on it, but ginger beer is another world entirely. The flavor is bolder, spicier, and more crafted. It can turn your Moscow Mule from a sweet and sugary mess to something complex and biting. Despite its name, it’s non-alcoholic, but the good stuff is still brewed. Meaning there’s a level of skill behind a good ginger beer which makes taste-testing it a whole lot of fun.
So we picked up all the ginger beers we could find and put them to the blind taste test in search of the very best brew. Let’s drink!
PART I — Methodology
For this blind taste test, I collected every bottle and can of ginger beer from Trader Joe’s, Bev Mo, and Total Wine I could find.
Here is our tasting class:
- Barritt’s Ginger Beer
- Betty Buzz Ginger Beer
- Bundaberg Ginger Beer
- Cock ’n Bull Ginger Beer
- Devil’s Foot Ginger Beer
- Devil’s Foot Ginger Beer Fuego
- Devil’s Foot Ginger Beer Ghost
- Fever Tree Blood Orange Ginger Beer
- Fever Tree Ginger Beer
- Goslings Ginger Beer
- Reeds Extra Ginger Beer
- Stoli Ginger Beer
- Trader Joe’s Ginger Beer
- Q Mixers Ginger Beer
I had a glass of each poured for me out of sight and made note of each one’s flavors. Ginger beer has a lot of variation, due to each brand’s preparation process — so each glass was markedly different.
A Small Caveat…
Keep this in mind — some ginger beers are meant to be mixed but not all of these ginger beers fall into that category. That probably means that the sweeter stuff is going to rank better, but pay special attention to our bottom line during the ranking portion of this article to get the clearest picture of what each bottle offers.
Here are the initial tasting notes.
Part 1: The Tasting
Taste 1:
An initial cane sugar sweetness hits the palate with a floral ginger flavor and a strong spice that attacks the back of the throat. It’s a bit dry, but very enjoyable and bold tasting with a refreshing fizzy body.
Taste 2:
The ginger is very fragrant on the nose, this one comes across as a lot sweeter than Taste 1. I’m tasting a bit of agave, cardamon, and warm earthy notes. The finish is light and crisp.
Taste 3:
After the first two, this one tastes incredibly tame in terms of sweetness. It has a very fragrant ginger scent on the nose and the flavor is rich and spicy. It tastes noticeably natural but doesn’t move into any other flavor but ginger. That can be a good or bad thing depending on what you’re looking for.
Taste 4:
Pungent and sour on the nose. That sourness translates to the flavor, it is almost wince-inducing. At the finish is a bit of cinnamon but not enough to cover up that horrible sour note. This is the bottom of the bottom.
Taste 5:
Not sweet at all, but that’s not a bad thing. I’m tasting floral notes, a twist of lime, and a body dominated by ginger. The finish is a bit bitter.
Taste 6:
Bright and lemony. If I didn’t know this was a ginger beer taste test, I don’t know that I’d clock this as ginger beer. This is a slight ginger flavor at the backend, but this mostly tastes like some sort of lemonade gone wrong.
Taste 7:
Very dark and distinct. There is a nice richness to this that I really enjoy. The dominant notes here are ginger and brown sugar with a woody finish.
Taste 8:
Very very fizzy. It almost has a Coca-Cola-like bite. Sweet and gingery with a hint of cinnamon and a light body.
Taste 9:
Very blunt on the nose, it almost smells like chili peppers. One whiff of this stuff made me sneeze. Is that a good thing? Not sure. It’s very spicy, but not in the way ginger is normally spicy — this is legit spicy like a pepper.
It has that earthy dry flavor that chili peppers have, I don’t think it tastes great on its own but it can really work in a cocktail. I think that must be what it’s for.
Taste 10:
Light and bright ginger notes with a juicy finish. It tastes almost like some sort of grapefruit juice but with that subtle ginger bite lurking at the finish.
Taste 11:
Very natural ginger flavor. It’s not sweet at all. Great flavor though, it tastes like someone juiced a ginger root into a vat of club soda.
Taste 12:
Dark and juicy, it creates a wet sensation on the palate. I’m tasting a hint of cardamom with a spicy finish that lingers on the tongue.
Taste 13:
Very spicy and fragrant. It ends with a sort of citrusy sour lemon and lime finish. I think this must be what Taste 4 was going for, but it actually works here.
Taste 14:
Very rich. The flavor evolves, hitting you first with ginger notes before settling into a brown sugar finish with a hint of clove. This one is almost malty, with a nice balance between sweetness and spice. I guess we saved the best for last because this is my favorite by a significant amount.
Part 2: The Ranking
14. Goslings Stormy Ginger Beer (Taste 4)
Price: $5.98 (6 pack)
Goslings is one of the only brands of ginger beer that touts awards it has won (Gold Medal at the BTI International Review of Spirits and 91 points at the Ultimate Spirits Challenge) but I found it to be easily the worst of the bunch. There is simply too much tang here. I don’t know if I got a bad bottle or if years of blind-tasting sodas has permanently fried my taste buds, but this one wasn’t for me.
Maybe it’s geared for use as a mixer and isn’t supposed to be tasted straight.
The Bottom Line:
If you like your ginger beer sour and tangy, this brand might be for you.
13. Betty Buzz Ginger Beer (Taste 6)
Price:$6.99 (4 pack)
Generally, I’m a big fan of Betty Buzz, it’s my go-to brand for grapefruit juice when I’m making a Paloma, but this one just didn’t hit with me. At the end of the day, it just doesn’t really taste like ginger beer to me, or ginger at all. The lemon notes were way too prominent here.
The Bottom Line:
It doesn’t taste like ginger, it tastes like unsweetened lemonade.
12. Devil’s Foot Fuego (Taste 5)
Price: $42 (24 pack)
Devil’s Foot pride itself on using natural ingredients, and this tastes like ginger with a hint of citrus and floral honey sweetness with some heat on the backend. That absolutely works in a cocktail but I don’t know that I love it straight on its own.
The Bottom Line:
A good ginger flavor with a bit of heat.
11. Devil’s Foot Ginger Beer (Taste 11)
Price: $42 (24 Pack)
I like Devil’s Foot Ginger Beer a touch more than the Fuego version. There is no heat here and that allows me to focus on the ginger root flavor with more prominent floral honey notes.
The Bottom Line:
An ideal mixer if you’re looking for natural ginger notes to add complexity to a drink.
10. Fever Tree Blood Orange Ginger Beer (Taste 3)
Price:$4.99
This tastes a bit more like grapefruit juice to me than blood orange. It adds a bitterness to the flavor you expect from ginger beer and a nice juicy finish. To make this Fever Tree adds real Italian-grown blood oranges into a ginger beer made from ginger from the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Cochin, India. It relies on fruit sugar in place of cane sugar and is specifically created to be a mixer, but I think it tastes pretty damn good on its own.
The Bottom Line:
Juicy, natural, and tasty enough to drink on its own. A unique flavor in the world of ginger beers.
9. Devil’s Foot — Ginger Beer Ghost (Taste 9)
Price: $42 (24 pack)
Devil’s Foot has a lot of ginger beer variations, but this one was far and above my favorite. Ghost takes Devil’s Foot Fuego Ginger Beer and infuses it with Scotch Bonnet Peppers, creating a ginger beer with a whole lot of heat. On its own, I won’t lie, I don’t like drinking it straight, but as soon as I had a taste it unlocked all these ideas in my head for complex cocktails.
The Bottom Line:
Devil’s Foot Ghost needs to be stocked in everyone’s bar cart as a secret weapon for complex and delicious cocktails.
8. Reed’s Extra Ginger Beer (Taste 13)
Price: $8.27 (4 pack)
Reed’s has several different ginger beer flavors out there but I’m willing to bet this is the most popular of the three since it was the only one I could find at all three stores. The ‘Extra’ sports two times the amount of ginger beer than the original flavor and utilizes a Jamaican-inspired recipe that combines real ginger root, natural fruit juices, honey, and spices.
The Bottom Line:
Sweet, tangy, and a bit spicy. Reed’s is great on its own or mixed in a drink.
7. Q Mixers Ginger Beer (Taste 2)
Price: $7.99 (4 pack)
Q Mixers Ginger Beer mixes real ginger, organic agave, chili peppers, and carbonation into a spicy soda that is explicitly made to be used as a mixer only. At least that’s what the website says, we think it tastes pretty damn good on its own!
The Bottom Line:
Spicy, sweet, and floral, Q Mixers is an ideal mixing ginger beer that dares to be delicious drunk straight.
6. Stoli Ginger Beer (Taste 8)
Price: $6.99 (4 pack)
Hailing from the house of Stolichnaya (but actually manufactured in the US) Stoli’s ginger beer is basic, in a good way. This just tastes like very good ginger beer, it doesn’t have any extra special ingredients that try and take it to elevate it to a new place, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes you just want something that tastes like ginger, this fits the bill.
The Bottom Line:
A delicious straight sweet ginger beer with no distracting bells and whistles. It has a classic flavor to it.
5. Barritt’s Bermuda Ginger Beer (Taste 7)
Price: $7.99 (4 pack)
Barritt’s touts itself as the Caribbean’s most beloved ginger beer and considering it’s one of the few brands that proudly proclaims it is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, it’s easy to see why. This ginger beer is soda sweet, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t taste good because of that.
It’s delicious! But just be warned, you’re basically drinking straight-up soda with stuff. It might as well be ginger ale.
The Bottom Line:
A sweet sugary ginger beer that should probably be reclassified as a ginger ale.
4. Trader Joe’s Ginger Beer (Taste 12)
Price: $3.99
Balance. That’s what Trader Joe’s was going for here and it works. This is the sort of ginger beer that pleases everyone, whether you’re looking for the sweet stuff or the more natural. It has a ginger bite mixed with some sweet cane sugar notes and a zesty citrus finish. No complaints here, this stuff tastes great straight.
The Bottom Line:
Sweet, natural, and citrusy, with a mild fizzy body.
3. Cock ’n Bull Ginger Beer (Taste 1)
Price: $4.78 (4 pack)
To many, the name “Cock n’ Bull” is just a name, but to this Southern California boy, Cock n Bull will always make me think of the former Hollywood restaurant it was named for. This is the stuff that used to be served in house and if you like your ginger beer spicy and biting, this stuff is near perfect. It’s made with carbonated water, cane sugar, and natural flavors. Notice I didn’t say ginger…
Is this a ginger ale and not a real ginger beer? I think so, but dammit if it isn’t delicious.
The Bottom Line:
Strong, spicy, and very sweet. It’s probably actually a ginger ale, be warned.
2. Fever Tree Ginger Beer (Taste 3)
Price: $2.99
As much as I liked the blood orange version of Fever Tree’s ginger beer, I have to give it to the original. It uses the same blend of ginger from the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Cochin offering a flavor that is dominated by spicy, full-bodied ginger. The faintest hint of sugar pulls it all together.
The Bottom Line:
Fever Tree is the perfect ginger beer for those looking for a distinct and flavorful mixer and it tastes great on its own without even trying. At just 80 calories per serving this ginger beer is that rare low-sugar variety that still tastes amazing.
1. Bundaberg Ginger Beer (Taste 14)
Price: $7.49 (4 pack)
Bundaberg is made from Australian-grown ginger from the brand’s own farm that is dried and ground before being combined with ginger wort, Queensland cane sugar and water, then fermented with yeast, and matured for three days in barrels before being mixed with carbonated water.
I’m not sure if it’s those three days of aging, but this is far and above the best ginger beer I tasted today.
The Bottom Line:
Sweet, distinct, spicy, and rich. Bundaberg offers a journey of flavors that offers something new with every sip. It is the ideal ginger beer for drinking straight or mixing in cocktails, offering a spicy natural flavor that rings in the back of the throat, and enough sweetness to make it a joy to slow sip.