I just had a Stewart’s Birch Beer. Boy does it suck taste bland.
I realize that artificial flavoring and corn syrup sweeteners save soft drink manufacturers money, but can’t they come up with better flavoring? Or at least more of it per unit volume? This stuff tastes like acid rain; in fact, the #1 ingredient is carbonic acid. Flavoring is fourth on the ingredients list.
Instead of quenching my thirst with a tasty beverage, I burned my throat trying to drink it.
I think it’s time to make my own.
BuffaloBloodDonor 
You know, I had the same experience when I reached for a Stewart’s Root Beer out of sheer nostalgia. I was like “Ugh. Was it always this sweet?”
Then I remembered when my mom would take me to Stewarts and, after polishing off two root beers, a hot dog, and curly fries, I would reach for the Hostess cupcakes they had on the counter. And I am really glad, for the sake of my teeth, that tastebuds do eventually mature.
I too had taste buds that mellowed with age, but the best root beer had little to do with sweetness. When I was a young child my father, a pharmacist, had a soda fountain in his drugstore. The first time he gave me soda fountain root beer it almost knocked me over with flavor. The soda fountain is long gone but over the years I would occasionally encounter a root beer, birch beer or sarsaparilla as flavorful as those in my childhood.
That hasn’t happened in over a decade. So many people will never know what real root beer tastes like. How sad.