I know that a lot of you remember the explosion of hard soda that happened back in the 2010’s when ‘Not Your Father’s Root Beer’ hit the market and then quietly fizzled right back out as its market share was replaced by the seemingly thousands of hard seltzers that followed it.

Since then, there have been a few hard sodas that have lingered around (including Not Your Father’s) with still sells a ton of product across the country every year. Overall, though, the hard soda category has been quiet – especially here in Cincinnati where no one has played around in it.

Until Now.

Why Hard Soda Makes A Lot Of Sense For March First

I don’t want to shatter any ideas that seltzer drinkers have about the Astra seltzers that they’ve fallen in love with in recent years – but this isn’t just carbonated water. The hard seltzers that are produced by March First are not just themed like candy and soda flavors… they take a lot of hints from them for what makes people enjoy them in the first place. (That means that they’re pretty sweet…and use the flavors that people associate with candy and soda, too).

It only makes sense then that as the brewery/distillery keeps working to innovate and create new products that they give this one a try… it fits so well with what they are already doing, it only cranks it up a few notches in both the flavor and sweetness. This is like Astra Hard Setlzer on steroids.

My Thoughts After Tasting Wally Pop Hard Soda

I have never hidden the fact that while I’ll certainly give everything a try – an equal opportunity drinker as I like to phrase it – seltzers and certainly hard sodas have never been my “thing”. With that in mind… and trying to keep an open mind, I’ve rolled my way through all three flavors of the hard sodas to see what they were like.

Before I share my thoughts, I have to let you know that I didn’t pay for these – they were a gift from my friends over at March First. While that doesn’t change my thoughts in any way, shape, or form… I wanted to make sure that I disclose it to you before I let you know my opinions.

The three flavors that you can snag in 12oz cans from the brewery are Birch Beer, Orange Soda, and Cherry Cola. They are all pretty freaking dead on to what you expect, too (as long as you know what birch beer is and aren’t expecting root beer).

I’ll skip making you wait too long… I thought that these were absolutely delicious. I don’t think that I could spend an entire day drinking this stuff the same way that I do beer – but I can 100% see myself drinking it in the same way that I do soda, just one or two at a time. I think that I would absolutely say that I like them, too. It’s a rare occasion for me to find a seltzer that I can say I actually enjoy… but these sodas? I enjoy them.

I have spent way longer than I care to admit trying to figure out which one is my favorite, or to throw them into some sort of ranking – and I don’t know that what I tell is you are going to be accurate (especially if you ask me again in a month). As of this minute, though, Just inching ahead of the others I’m going to say that I like the Birch Beer the best, followed up by the Cherry Cola, then the Orange Soda.

They are all so close to each other for me, though – that it really isn’t fair to rank them, at all.

Is This The Next Big Thing?

I don’t want to speak for March First, but I can say that I don’t think they expect to add this to their product line long term. This project is just something that they wanted to play around with, to see what it was all about.

That being said – I wouldn’t expect to see these on shelves for a long time unless it sells a lot better than the experts say that it should.

I do think, however, that the likelihood that you’ll see what the brewery learns from making this product making its way into other things that they do is very high. These taste that good that it would be dumb to ignore.

Wally Pop gets me curious, it gets me excited and it’s not at all what I thought it was going to be.