No Boulevard Chocolate Ale for 2013

[Jensen]

Well that'll make for some sad folks...

http://www.lawrence.com/weblogs/bull-pe ... of-chocol/

[Frank]

I don't think this will help their problem, one concern they sighted was keeping up with demand, and I fear it will never return. We all remember the frenzy this year, now multiply that by a 1-2 year hiatus. I feel that it will be worse because people will think they need to buy a 2 year supply all at once. While I am disappointed that any limited release beer is discontinued, I don't think this beer was good enough to warrant the fiasco that follows it. This whole thing reminds me of the "Beanie Baby" craze in the mid-late 90s only in this case there's not teams of Chinese children able to make enough to meet demand.

[Pentaquark]

I had two bottles from last year and they were part of the recalled/refunded batch. They tasted like PB+Js which was certainly interesting but not exactly what I was looking for.

[mushhawk]

Why don't they just make more of it?
If there's a high demand for something, just make a bigger batch.
You know they have the equipment for it.

You'd think since it was SO popular last year that they'd amp up the volume instead of nixing it all together this year.
Weird...

[Frank]

Why don't they just make more of it?

There are at least two reasons I can think of why this is not possible. First they use a very specific chocolate from at specific chocolate maker. This is the primary reason this became so popular. The chocolate maker is world renowned and the beer was marketed as such. Second this is a barreled beer. Boulevard only has a limited amount of space for this beer as there are several others in their line-up that are barrel aged as well.

[JMcG]

Not sure that their attempts to ramp up production didn't contribute to the "quality problem" they had with this years edition.
Sometimes things aren't as simple as they ought to be.
jim