Beam Protein Review - Which Flavor is Best?

My friend convinced me to try Beam vegan protein after she found them on Tik-Tok shop, so I decided to fully invest in the product and do a complete review.

beam protein cartoon illustration of packaging with review score data

In this post, I’ll talk all about the Beam protein, and let you know if this product is worth a shot.

I’ve tried literally hundreds of vegan protein powders at this point, so I’ll be able to give you the complete scoop on Beam vegan protein.

Here’s what you can expect in this Beam Review.

What You Can Expect in This Beam Review

What You Can Expect in This Beam Review
How I Found Beam Protein
Beam Flavor Comparison
Beam Protein Macros & Ingredients
- Beam Protein Macros
- Beam Protein Ingredients
Beam Packaging Could be Better

The first thing I do in all my protein powder reviews is do a brief analysis of the brand, and I give a little overview of where I found them, what they are all about, etc.

I’ve found some really cool ones lately, like Bub’s Naturals, who makes a great collagen product, and then donates most of their profits to veterans.

Or Seeq protein, who makes clear protein powder that tastes like kool-aid!

So I will spend some time talking about the brand and how I found them.

The next thing I do, and this is the important part, is talk about the flavors.

What is the best flavor of Beam protein?
Does Beam have good texture?
Which was my least favorite flavor?

Things like this are going to be answered.

I tried all 8 flavors of Beam protein so that you don’t have to.

I’ll rank them all from best to worst.

After that, we get down to the nitty-gritty of the ingredients.

We spend some time talking about what actually goes into this product, and whether or not those ingredients are high quality or not.

After that, you guys know I’m a bit of a design ‘nerd’, so we talk about the packaging before wrapping things up with a value breakdown (basically answering if it’s worth the $).

And that’s pretty much it!

It’s pretty in-depth, but I think you’ll enjoy the level of analysis I provide in my Beam review.

How I Found Beam Protein

Beam protein was actually recommended to me by a friend, who originally found them on Tik-Tok shop.

I feel like I’ve been finding some really great new products on Tik-Tok lately, and not just greens.

Yes, Bloom seemed to have their moment, but in the past few months I’m seeing other brands start to emerge.

Brands like Seeq, which I mentioned before, along with other brands like One Sol, Ryse protein, and others are starting to make waves on the new social media platform.

I was a little skeptical of Beam when my friend told me to try them because I’ve had some really bad vegan proteins lately…

But you know I never turn down an opportunity to talk protein.

So, I went over to the Beam website to learn more about their brand.

About Beam

I like to go to the brand’s website before I place an order for a new protein, instead of simply ordering off Tik-Tok shop.

(Full disclosure, sometimes I do order off of Amazon, like how I did for ‘Hi Protein‘ just because it’s so much easier with Prime shipping)

But Beam had me really curious to learn more about what their brand is all about…

And what I found was somewhat surprising.

Oftentimes, the new brands that I find have just one product that they specialize in…

But that was not the case with Beam.

This brand has a full produce line built out – from greens, to pre-workouts, to probiotics and creatine… I was shocked with how big this company really is.

It made me wonder how the company got started, and even piqued my curiosity about what their brand name means too.

What Does ‘Beam’ Even Mean Anyways?

The cool thing about this brand is that the name is much more than just a name.

On the company website, I learned that Beam actually is the name of the cancer treatment that was used to save the life of the company’s founder, Michael.

He took the name of that treatment and used it as the rallying cry for his brand, which stands for resilience, and self-improvement.

The message that all of us can ‘BE-AMazing’ really resonates with me, and from the look of it, with thousands of customers as well.

Getting to know the Beam story made me even more excited to give their protein powders a try.

Real quick before we talk flavors though – one thing that confused me was if all Beam products were vegan or not.

Are All Beam Products Vegan?

At first I thought maybe all of the Beam products were vegan, but after doing a little more digging into their product line, it looks like they have some vegan, and some non-vegan products as well.

I think this is a great approach so that you have some products that can accommodate people with different preferences.

For example, they have both vegan, and dairy-based (whey) protein powders.

After I try the vegan products I might even try the whey, but for now, let’s get into some of these amazing Beam flavors.

Beam Flavor Comparison

I know for most of you, the most important thing when it comes down to choosing a protein is the taste and texture.

For me it is certainly the most important, after all, nothing is worse than having to choke down a chalky, or gritty protein shake.

The scary thing for Beam is that I know many vegan proteins can end up being very gritty.. so my ‘texture alarm’ was on high-alert going into this Beam review.

As I mentioned, I ended up buying one of each flavor of the Beam protein, so that I could try them all.

So without further ado, let’s talk about these flavors.

NOTE: My methodology for trying these Beam protein flavors was to put one scoop in 10 ounces of almond milk.

Birthday Cake

The birthday cake flavor of Beam seems to be their most popular flavor, as it is promoted on the website very prominently, as well as on social media.

It’s also one of the top results on Amazon for ‘birthday cake protein’.

So I had high hopes for this flavor, and it did not disappoint.

This flavor was sweet, but also decadent, buttery, and overall really delicious.

The texture was smooth, and not gritty at all.

I don’t think it was the best birthday cake protein I’ve ever had, but it is definitely the best vegan version of a birthday cake protein that I’ve ever had.

Peanut Butter Smoothie

I was really curious to try this flavor since the last protein powder that I reviewed, the Promix protein, actually had peanut butter as its best flavor.

The peanut butter smoothie flavor of Beam was actually similar-tasting to Promix’s version.

It was salty, sweet, and also had a really nice texture.

I still preferred the birthday cake version over this one, but overall this was a good option as well.

Brown Sugar Oatmeal

Now this was a first for me – an oatmeal-flavored protein powder?

I have to give the team at Beam credit for coming up with this creative flavor idea.

Brown sugar in oatmeal is probably my go-to breakfast, so I was eager to test this one out.

And the crazy thing is – it actually does taste like oatmeal!

You can really taste both the brown sugar, and a sort of ‘oaty’ flavor that isn’t bad at all.

I found myself reaching for this flavor several times over the course of the past week after my morning workout just because it’s not over-bearing and tastes just like a real food.

Blueberry Muffin

Okay someone at Beam must really enjoy breakfast foods, because between the blueberry muffin along with brown sugar oatmeal, they are totally leaning into those early in the day food selections.

You guys know from reading my other reviews that I am a huge blueberry lover, so I was super eager to give this flavor a try.

But honestly I was a little disappointed in this effort from Beam.

The blueberry did not come through quite as much as I had hoped, and weirdly enough, this one just tasted like the oatmeal one, but with a smattering of berry flavor.

I think they missed the mark on this one.

Chocolate Brownie Batter

Finally, a chocolate-themed flavor! Lol.

I was waiting for this one eagerly, because I am a big-time chocolate connoisseur.

And an even bigger brownie connoisseur.

I was in-luck with this flavor.

Vegan protein powders can be very difficult to make taste good with chocolate flavors – oftentimes the two just are not compatible.

But Beam pulled off a real miracle with this flavor.

It literally had a brownie flavor that goes beyond just simple chocolate to invoke that feeling of eating a real brownie.

Or drinking, rather.

But they totally nailed it – it’s properly sweet, plenty salty, and has incredible drinkability.

You will want to drink this one time, and time again.

Fruity Cereal

The Ghost brand basically put cereal milk protein on the map way-back-when they introduced some of their original protein powders with cereal milk flavors…

And ever since, it seems most protein brands follow-suit to make sure they have a similar offering.

Some of them are good, and some of the them just are not.

I don’t think the fruity cereal is one of Beam’s stronger offerings.

They clearly tried to mimic a sort of ‘Fruity Pebbles’-style flavor with this one, but something is just missing for me…

I do taste some of the fruit flavor, but it sort of just tastes like a lemon-lime flavored protein.

I’m not getting enough of that ‘cereal flavor’ to really make this one a hit for me.

Cinnamon Cereal

What do you know, another ‘breakfeasty’ flavor from Beam… Lol…

I think this flavor is actually better than the fruity cereal flavor, but not quite as good as the other hits like brownie batter or birthday cake.

It has a really nice cinnamon note, and this one has exceptionally good texture, not sure if I am imagining that it is better, or if it really is, but I did enjoy it a lot.

Natural Vanilla

The natural vanilla flavor is not good and I would not recommend it at all over any of the other flavors.

I get it, they wanted to have something for the folks who don’t want any artificial ingredients in their protein shake, but this one is a total fail.

It is bitter and has an aftertaste that you really are not going to like.

The flavor completely lacks a true vanilla note of any kind, and so the taste of the proteins really comes through, and not in a good way.

I would steer clear.

What’s the Best Flavor of Beam Protein?

The best flavor of the Beam protein is without a doubt the brown sugar oatmeal.
-me

The cinnamon cereal flavor would have to be my second favorite, followed by chocolate brownie batter and limited edition birthday cake.

I would steer clear of the natural vanilla flavor.

Now that you have a good understanding of the Beam product from a flavor perspective, let’s talk a little bit about the ingredients and macros.

Beam Protein Macros & Ingredients

The flavors are important, but it’s really about what goes into the product that matter the most with these products.

You can have the best-tasting protein powder on the planet, but if the ingredients are lousy, then it’s not worth buying IMO.

Some products taste great, like the Seeq protein, but then have artificial ingredients.

And unfortunately that seems to be the case for Beam protein as well.

As I’m learning from studying the nutritional info, it appears as thought they do use a fair amount of artificial ingredients in this product to give it that great taste.

Beam Protein Macros

The macros in Beam are about what I would expect from a standard vegan protein powder.

Each scoop yields about 20 grams of protein, and does not have much of anything else.

Calories 120
Total Fat 2g
Saturated Fat 0g
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0mg
Sodium 370mg
Total Carbohydrate 4g
Dietary Fiber 1g
Total Sugars 1g
Protein 20g

NOTES: Nothing jumps out to me on the macros – this is a very standard protein powder delivering 20 grams of protein per 32 gram scoop.

Beam Protein Ingredients

The ingredients are a little bit ‘suss’ as the kids say these days.

Although the protein blend is really high quality, they do use several artificial ingredients for the flavoring, which I don’t appreciate.

Here’s the full list of Beam protein ingredients:

Pea Protein
Mung Bean Protein
Pumpkin Seed Protein
Natural Flavors
Salt
Marine Algae
Gum Blend (guar, acacia, xanthan)
Apple fiber
Sucralose

NOTES: Beam is a very interesting product because you have some really nice, high-quality ingredients like pea protein and pumpkin seed protein, but also include some lower quality artificial ingredients like sucralose, which can lead to gut health issues.

Let’s talk about the Beam protein packaging before we wrap up the review.

Beam Packaging Could be Better

Beam has a cool brand, and an okay vibe, but I think their packaging could be improved.

First off – they still use big, bulky plastic tubs for their packaging, which is not very user friendly, or environmentally-friendly, for that matter.

They cost a great deal of money to produce, and they are expensive to ship as well, which is not great for the customer.

Beam tubs also take up a TON of space in your kitchen.

From a label design standpoint, I also think that this product could be better. They uses a full shrink sleeve on the entire plastic jar, which can get wrinkled and falls off-center most of the time.

I much prefer a sticker label instead of the shrink-sleeve, for a better overall user-friendly experience.

The design of the shrink-sleeves are okay, but not anything special.

The graphics are very faint, as Beam opted for more of a soft ‘pastel’ vibe in terms of colors.

These colors are too faint, and hard to read though.

So it is a bit confusing for the customer to get all of the information that they need from this packaging.

The things Beam did right on their design, is to use big, bold fonts.

The Beam logo is large, and sits in a prominent position at the top of the packaging.

It also features the words ‘vegan protein’ in extra large letters on the main panel, which is nicely done so that the customer knows exactly what the product is.

And despite the pastel colors being a little too faint in my opinion, it does make for an overall nice-looking product.

I think by making the colors a little bolder, it would go a long way in improving the Beam protein aesthetic.

Let’s summarize the review and wrap things up.

Beam Protein Review Summary

Beam is a lifestyle supplement brand based on the ethos that we can all ‘be amazing’ and conquer the different challenges that life throws at us
This protein powder is vegan, and comes in 8 different flavors, with the brown sugar oatmeal flavor being the most tasty of the lot
Beam uses a combination of pea, mungbean, and pumpkin seed as its main protein sources, but uses artificial sweeteners to sweeten the formula
Each scoop of Beam provides 20 grams of protein per serving, along with 120 total calories and virtually no fats or sugars
Beam’s packaging is unique, but suffers from a lack of contrast with its lightly-colored pastel palette, and it also should consider switching to flexible packaging to be more sustainable

Is Beam Protein Worth the Money?

Beam has gained popularity on social media because of its attractive branding and exceptional marketing, and I can see why.

It is relatively tasty, and at $2 per serving, it really is not that expensive, considering the quality of the ingredients.

There are other protein powders that I would probably buy over Beam, but as far as vegan proteins go, it is certainly worth trying.*

Final Review Score: 8.5/10

Taste: B-
Ingredients: B-
Packaging: B
Value: B
Final Score: B

Beam Protein Review – Which Flavor is Best?