Review: Quaker Chewy Smashbar Pretzel Berry Bar

Continuing Quaker weekend leads me to today's post and if you haven't been able to tell from my reviews (there's more coming), I eat an absurd amount of Quaker Chewy bars.  I probably eat at least one a day, so I thought I was pretty well versed in all their flavors until they introduced the Smashbar line and now it's time for the first review in that line with the Pretzel Berry Smashbar.  As with all Chewy bars, this one is 0.84 ounces.  It also comes in at 90 calories per bar and I picked up a box of eight of these on sale at Meijer for $2.49.

Smashbars go for the combination of sweet and salty and when you look at my overly close picture of this Pretzel Berry Smashbar, you can see all of those characteristics in there.  The sweet part is covered by the "berry" (otherwise known as sweetened cranberries) bits that are spread throughout the bar as well as the decent sized chocolate chunks.  The salty part of the bar is covered by the large pretzel pieces that are spread intermittently throughout the bar as well.  The rest of the bar is made up of the standard and famous Quaker oat mix.

In terms of taste, they do a nice job finding a balance between sweet and salty in this one, which is the exact opposite of my last Smashbar review which was too salty.  This one is has a nice sweetness from the artificially sweetened cranberries and then the tartness of the cranberries is given sweet depth by the chocolate chunks.  Without the chocolate chunks, this bar could run the risk of being two sweet, but the chocolate chunks balance that out.  The saltiness is then brought by the crunchy pretzels and while they do add some saltiness to this, they do not overpower the sweetness of the bar.  It's a good balance between the two, in fact.

Buy It or Fly By It?  When you are able to achieve a nice balance between sweet and salty, you get a BUY IT rating and this bar gets that.  While I wouldn't recommend that you use this as a breakfast bar, you actually could because the saltiness is not going to overwhelm you.  What this bar would excel at is a perfect mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack and I will (and have) used it as that in the future and would recommend you do the same if you are so inclined to make the purchase.

BUY IT!!