"chocolate beer" news and stories

It started a few years ago when some of the large breweries started putting out microbrew styled seasonal and specialty brews. Now it has become big business. We already know that Miller is releasing a chocolate flavored beer in limited numbers in the mid-west through the end of the year. Anheuser-Busch also has a chocolate beer in its Michelob Celebrate line, which started last year with its vanilla oak beer. They will also have pumpkin ale out this fall and vanilla-flavored bourbon ale to be released for the winter. Blue Moon, a Coors company has long been known for its seasonal beers especially the pumpkin.

Expect to see many more flavored beers coming out over the next year or two. The most popular are pumpkin, honey, vanilla and nuts. I love the fact that the big breweries are brewing craft styled beers. I have home brewed beer, cider, and mead since college and I worked in a brewpub in grad school. I'm a big craft beer fan and enjoy my high quality brews with big natural flavors. The more people that get exposed to great beer, the more that will be made, all to my benefit of course.

One of my current favorites is Samuel Adams with their limited release Brewer Patriot collection which I tried several times recently and thought both interesting and tasty. These are traditional brewing styles from young America that may not be to everyone's taste, but show how vastly different craft style beers can be. There are four beers in the collection: Traditional Honey Ale with ginger, lemon peel, and honey at 5.5% alcohol, George Washington Porter with molasses and licorice (unknown alcohol level), James Madison Dark Wheat Ale with hand-smoked malted barley (unknown alcohol level), and 1790 Root Beer Brew with herbs, spices, vanilla, honey, and molasses at 5.5% alcohol.

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Flavored beers are most often produced by smaller, regional breweries, while the national brewers tend to stick with the tried-and-true brands that they know their consumers already have a taste for. But it seems like more of the major brewers are catching on to the trend and releasing seasonal or flavored brews. Miller Brewing Co. is introducing a chocolate beer, Frederick Miller Classic Chocolate Lager, that will be sold throughout the midwest from October to December. The beer won a gold medal at the 2005 Great American Beer Festival and is made up of a blend of cacao nibs and six different malts, which supposedly give it a more complex flavor than regular beer. It will be sold in "sold in four packs of 12-ounce bottles and will be marketed for holiday gift giving."

I won't comment on the gifting value of a four-pack of beer, but I guess it's nice to know that the company encourages sharing.

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