Samuel Adams Chocolate Bock

[beans]

Saw the story on Business Wire, but can no longer link to it because it is from January 30th.

Anywho, here's The Cincinnati Post online story from January 15, 2004:

For the holiday, Samuel Adams Brewery on Central Parkway made just 50,000 bottles of Chocolate Bock for the entire country. Each bottle -- holding just over 25 ounces, about the same as a bottle of wine -- will sell for $14-$15.

story here.

Cheers!

[Katherine]

Sam Adams Brewery is the master of marketing gimmicks. No chocolate! Just chocolate-roast malt, I guess. Which can be found in many dark microbrews that don't use it as a marketing ploy.

Edit to add: OK, cocoa beer. But Sam Adams is always pandering to the whims of rare bottle collectors with its limited releases. The ones I have tasted are not worth the sky high prices.

Edited February 1, 2004 by Katherine (log)

[Mayhaw Man]

Actually this beer does have an addition of "cocoa nibs".

This is hardly a first. A number of brewers have used chocolate in the last few years, most notably Dixie Brewing Company in New Orleans marketed " White Chocolate Mousse" for a few years. I do not think it is currently being produced, but with Dixie's bizarre ups and downs-who knows?

The link also shows a number of other chocolate beers that have been produced in the last few years by other breweries.

[cdh]

Hell.. Even I've homebrewed with nibs a few years ago... one of my tweaks to my abbey dubbel recipe. Nibs and sweet orange oil turned out pretty well... at least better than the present batch that used raisins and an ancho chile.

Definitely not worth $15 a bottle... few beers are.

[Mayhaw Man]

When I used to judge homebrew contests I was usually slotted in strong beers (which I love) and "weird beers" which often included things like chile beers and chocolate beers (and even weirder than that a combination of the two). I can't say that I ever had a beer including chiles that I thought was truly outstanding, although I would describe alot of them as interesting.

I think that I have the perception that to a large degree most beers should be refreshing (although there are lots of notable exceptions to that statement) and chile beers tend to leave an oily taste in the drinkers mouth that leaves you wanting something to wash it out. As far as commercial products with chiles go, I thought that Ed's was pretty much undrinkable.

On the other hand, I have had some chocolate barley wines that were damn good. The high level of alcohol and the nice chocolaty taste often worked out to be anice combination.

Judging strong beers was always kind of fun though. I once sat through 19 flights and then a couple of flights for best of show. THis was about an 8 hour session and my memory of the end is pretty hazy . The best of show in that particular competition ( I think it was in Houston at the Texas Homebrew event in roughly 96) was an imperial stout that was as good as anything I ever drank. Man was it good, but at about 9% it also might have affected the other judging going on

[Blondie]

I tried Young's Double Chocolate Stout a while back. It was nice, but not close to knocking Guinness off the top of my list.

The Young's site description:

A dark, ruby coloured stout, almost black from a distance. A distinctive chocolate flavour with a smooth and velvety finish.

Pale ale malt, crystal malt, roasted barley, chocolate malt, special blend of sugars, Fuggles and Goldings hops, real dark chocolate and chocolate essence. Melted chocolate bars are added to the boil and the essence is added after filtration.

[Mudpuppie]

I really like Young's, though it's a touch on the sweet side.

There's another chocostout that I found once, but never again. It was from Colorado and was, I think, in a draft can. I can't for the life of me remember what it was. Yummy, though.

[beans]

Definitely not worth $15 a bottle... few beers are.

Chris-

It is 25 ounces so I'm guessing it is in a 750ml wine bottle.