Double Choc Brownie R Bar Review (Reflex Nutrition)

It's been a while since I reviewed any of Reflex's protein bars The last one I tried was the white chocolate and raspberry ripple R Bar, which I was impressed with primarily due to its softness. I've continued to munch the bars on a regular basis and find them to be just the ticket on the train home from uni.

I was fortunate to receive a package of treats from Reflex just before I went away which included the double Choc Brownie R Bar as well as their Banana & Custard Casein (review coming soon). I wanted to make the most of our trip and knew I'd be up to all sorts of energetic activities (get your mind out of the gutter now please) so packed a few for those "just in case I get hungry" moments.

For those of you who aren't au fait with Reflex or their philosophy, then you need to know that their sole objective is to create quality sports nutrition products. Whilst taste is important, they aim to deliver the very best supplements and as such the bars are made in their very own factory here in Blighty using the "highest quality whey protein", almond or peanut butter and natural sweetener gluco-fibre (as opposed to IMO, dextrose or glucose syrups which cause spikes in blood sugar levels).

I found the RBar to be more enjoyable than their flapjack based bars and so was looking forward to trying their double chocolate brownie flavour.

It turned out that taking a few bars with me was a cracking idea. On only our second day we visited Batu Caves -home to the gold statue of Lord Morugun, the largest religious statue in the world- and hiked the 272 steps in the heat to visit the monkey ridden temple cave at the top. Breakfast suddenly felt like a long time away and we weren't sure how long it would take to get back to Kuala Lumpur, so out came my first R Bar of the trip.

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I regularly eat Quest's chocolate brownie bar so it was easy to draw comparison between the two. The first thing I noticed was the softness of the bar, which could be easily bent. The second I noticed was the cubes of chocolate that were embedded throughout. Quest's chocolate brownie is one of their non-chunky bars and so I found Reflex's addition to be a welcome treat.

Biting into the bar rendered a pleasant surprised. Whilst it didn't taste exactly like a non-protein, full fat brownie, I didn't expect it to. The chocolate fused with the undertones of almond well to provide a well balanced flavour that was sweet despite containing only 1g of sugar. It tasted less of whey than I thought it would too, and the sweetener was also less apparent. Even my protein supplement avoiding other half asked to try a bite and then promptly asked if he could nab a bar. 

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As with the white chocolate & raspberry R Bar, the malleability is remarkable. There's nothing worse than chewing a bar until it makes your jaw or having to retrieve bits of one from between your teeth - and that's thankfully never going to be an issue with these bars.

If you want a high quality, chocolatey, soft protein bar with excellent macros then you can't go far wrong with a Double Choc Brownie R Bar. For me, it's far superior to Quest's version. 

Macros per bar: Kcal: 209 P20/C9/F9

R Bars are available to buy from Reflex's website. As always, a huge thank you to Reflex for the samples. 

8/10

*Can you tell the rest of the photos taken in my garden instead?