It comes in a ~25oz. bottle. I poured a glass, and it was a nice dark color, with a beautiful creamy head. Mild aroma of chocolate, and it didn’t taste as heavy as I expected. It reminded me of the Chelsea Cream Stout with a half shot of Kahlua I enjoyed in NYC earlier in the winter, which were probably the most enjoyable pints of beer I ever had.
Finding out what the price was ($17.95!!), I don’t think it was worth it, but before that, it was excellent.
Any other Dopers have a chance to try it? What’d you think?
It’s only sold in the large bottle. At their brewery tour, I asked about the chocolate flavor, and learned that they do use “real chocolate” of some kind - many dark beers with chocolatey overtones get that from particular dark-roasted strains of barley.
I thought it was fine. Nothing I’d go out of my way to get again, but a decent beer.
It’s…well…it’s a novelty item, at best. It’s WAY overpowering on the chocolate front. It tastes a bit like someone steeped Chocolate Nestle Quik in a vat of beer.
I wouldn’t say it’s horrible. Maybe something to share with the sweetie one or twice a year, but I wouldn’t go out of my way looking for it.
If I’m going to spend serious money on a bottle of beer, I’ll spend the $10 and get myself a 22 ozer of Three Floyd’s Dreadnaught Ale. Now that is absolutely worth the sticker price.
Just the large bottle, as Ferret Herder mentioned. It’s a limited edition, and going by what the sign said, I got one of the last three bottles in PA*.
*I did not get the grain of salt. They must charge extra for that.
Beers of the World, up in Rochester, NY, always has Chocolate Bock on display. But that’s probably because Sam Adams, New England’s own, is made at the Upper Falls Brewery in Rochester. Something that they don’t go around announcing very often.
To be fair, their brewery tour does mention that they have at least a few breweries around the country, IIRC - a victim of their success, the touring brewery in Boston was their original location, and now serves as a test facility.
The Sam Adams beers have been very succesfully marketed, but there’s always been a little bit of skirting around the truth of their geographic origin. Jim Koch founded the Boston Beer Company in 1984 (reviving the name of a historic but unrelated brewery that had existed from 1828 to 1957), and really played up the “historic Boston connection” despite the fact that
(from here). [Apparently, the original Sam Adams was a maltster, not a brewer, and didn’t look anything like the image on the Sam Adams bottles, which resembles Paul Revere to a far greater extent.]
So, contract brewing of Sam Adams outside of Boston is not so much a measure of the company’s success as just the way they’ve always done it. They only started brewing any of their beer in Boston once they had become successful, despite what their PR would have us believe.
In the interest of transcontinental rivalry, compare this to San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing company, whose signature Anchor Steam has been brewed since 1896 at the same location (and is IMHO superior to any of the Sam Adams beers, not that I’d ever turn my nose up at the latter). There is no doubt, however, that Jim Koch of Sam Adams fame has done a wonderful marketing job of creating national name-brand recognition for a high-quality range of beers.
