Saturday, August 25, 2012

Review: Balance Bar Gold Chocolate Mint Cookie Crunch Bar


For someone who originally did not like the chocolate and mint combination, I've sure spent a lot of time "punishing" myself by doing reviews of bars with that flavor combination here on the blog.  Next up in the punishment line is another Balance Bar review and specifically, another review of the bars that I received complimentary of Balance bar themselves.  This Chocolate Mint Cookie Crunch bar is part of their Gold line of bars, which if you read the packaging, you'll see that the Gold line of bars are made of "Three Indulgent Layers."  As per a typical Balance Bar, this one is 1.76 ounces and has 200 calories.  It also has fourteen grams of protein.



Opening up the wrapper, the first thing I noticed is the very strong smell of mint, which isn't surprising at all since this is a mint flavored bar.  Once I got past the mint smell, I broke the bar in half and what I found inside was a typical rice crisp mix that was mixed with little chocolate, Oreo-like cookie pieces.  The rice crisp was also tinted a dark brown to signify the chocolate aspect of the bar.  The entire bar was the covered in a thick layer of chocolate which carried the aforementioned minty smell.

When I bit into the bar, my first thought was "WOW, MINT!"  Now, I know this is a mint bar and I should be tasting mint, but this was really, really strong.  It was borderline overpowering.  Once I processed the mint flavor, I moved onto the other parts of the bar and they each delivered their own unique aspect.  The chocolate cookie pieces definitely had that chocolate flavoring and added a nice additional crunch to the typical crunch of the rice crisp mix, so the bar definitely delivered on the crunch part of its name.  The outer layer of chocolate itself, while thick and hearty, really lacked any sort of sweetness and in fact, pretty much only tasted of the vastly overpowering taste of mint.  Mint, mint, mint...that's all I tasted in this bar.

Buy It or Fly By It?  While this bar was okay for one or two bites, the power of the mint flavoring became overpowering after that and became just too much for me and I couldn't even finish the bar (and this is coming from a guy that eats peppermints and chews mint gum all day long).  For that reason, I give this a FLY BY IT rating.  This wasn't a bad bar, in moderation, but if you really, really have to like the chocolate and mint combination in order to finish this bar because it is just too strong and too much for one bar.  What made it even worse for me is that mint flavor just lingered in my mouth for like an hour after that. I just couldn't get it to go away and that was somewhat upsetting.

FLY BY IT!!
Buy Balance Bar Gold Chocolate Mint Cookie Crunch Bars at Amazon.com

3 comments:

  1. I just tried one of these and I couldn't finish it... and this is coming from someone who likes the flavor of mint... this tasted like a combination of toothpaste and waxy, low-quality chocolate. I imagine this is what a cheap knockoff of Thin Mints would taste like (and admittedly I'm not a fan of Thin Mints to begin with).

    Just goes to show how Balance bars can be hit-or-miss... several flavors I absolutely love (the S'mores bar and the new Chocolate Raspberry bar are two of my all-time favorite nutrition bars), and others I can't stand.

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  2. I usually don't like chocolate and mint together. I also usually do not like Balance Bars. However, for some reason I enjoyed the mint chocolate bar.

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  3. I love this bar. My local Raley's has had them on sale for $1 each and I've been buying them out. Generally have 1 for breakfast and 1 between dinner and lunch. Tastes great, but I'm a huge fan of Mine & Chocolate combo's. Everyone has their flavor, I guess.

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