cream soda tastes funny

I got a cream soda for my daughter, and we made it the other night. Added sugar and water and kegged. Now it tastes a bit "bitter" to me. Not like I expect good cream soda should taste like.

We made Birch Beer and carbed naturally before and it turned out pretty good (except the exploding bottles...)

What could be wrong with the cream soda?

What brand did you use?

It was the stuff in the brown and yellow box with a small plastic jar inside. Can't remember off the top of my head. The common one. My wife picked it up at a big brew supply store.

Its Rainbow. I made some on Saturday and it tasted bitter to me too.

I used:

4 gal water
2 bottles of extract
2 lbs. sugar

I force carbed it over the past few days and its still bitter.

I dumped mine so I could use the keg. I'm trying the birch beer again. Same company, but tasted better last time. Only doing half-batch. Need to be able to carb up a few bottles for Halloween.

I also made the (rainbow?) cream soda and it was way too watered down with 4 gals of water. The box says it makes 4 gallons. We sweetened it a lil at a time and still tasted like crap. It was my first batch of soda ever, and it kinda turned me off from making soda. I also dumped it out to use the keg(for beer of course). Is rainbow just a crappy brand for cream soda?

Not sure. It seems to be the one that everyone carries, even the good LBHSs. I've made their Birch Beer before and thought it turned out pretty good. I'd like to do another batch, but now with Apfelwein on the kegger, and a Belgian Wit in the fermenter, I'll need to drink up the IPA just to make room for the Belgian! Was hoping to have a keg of soda on tap too, but the fridge only holds two kegs, and that apfelwein is the second (although I haven't tried it since getting the gas on it. Shold see how it turned out.)