Popwell Prebiotic root beer

Background information: (from the website) "Popwell is a Better-For-You soda that delivers all the soda satisfaction you crave—without the excess sugar and empty calories. Made with prebiotic fiber, real fruit juice, and our Cold Crafted process, Popwell offers bold, refreshing flavors with low calories, 1g of sugar or less, and gut-friendly benefits."

Product details: 12 fl. oz.  Talking Rain Beverage Company, Preston, WA 98050. 35 calories, 1g sugar. Aluminum can. https://drinkpopwell.com/

Ingredients: Carbonated water, soluble corn fiber, contains 2% or less of: apple juice concentrate, acerola fruit juice powder, fruit and vegetable juice (for color), natural flavors, niacinamide (vitamin B3), calcium pantothenate (vitamin B5), biotin, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12), stevia sweetener, citric acid, zinc sulfate, mushroom glycolipids.

My thoughts: There has been a surge of pre/pro-biotic sodas hitting the shelves in recent years, many of which offer root beers. While not usually my preferred root beer, I'm here to review them all, so I try to at least give them a fair chance.

Cracking open the can, it has a very root beer candy smell to it. The flavor is rooty as well, but with a very strong wintergreen component. The wintergreen quickly overwhelms the rooty flavor, however, and absolutely dominates the aftertaste, leaving me feeling like I just ate a breath mint. If you like your root beers extra minty, then this might be one for you.

Carbonation is on the light side, with fairly tame and tiny bubbles that lend a sense of carbonation, but don't really stand out. While it doesn't feel flat, I think it needs more prickle to really feel properly carbonated. Some of these pre/pro-biotic sodas have a thick texture to them, but this one is lighter and crisp. It doesn't exactly foam up or create a creamy sensation, but feels smooth nonetheless. Sweetness is actually quite decent for a stevia-sweetened drink, as I didn't get too much sense of the stevia flavor (probably overwhelmed by the wintergreen) and my mouth was left feeling fairly clean and fresh...a bit too fresh.

This was a bit different. I'm. not a huge fan of super mint heavy root beers, so this one ranks a fair bit lower than it otherwise might have. In fact, by the end of the can, it tasted more like a mint soda than a root beer.

Rating: D+
flavor: D+
aftertaste: D
sweetness: A
smoothness: B

carbonation: C-