A-B's Chocolate Beer - The beginning of a New Trend

On STLtoday.com, there was a story about Anheuser-Busch's new chocolate beer: Michelob Celebrate Chocolate. A-B suggests that the beer be served at room temperature and be sipped, not slammed, and should go good with pecan pie, Kristi Zantop, brewmaster, said. Brewed with caramel and roasted malts and matured on cocoa beans, the chocolate beer looks like liquid dark chocolate with a creamy latte-colored foam. It doesn't taste like conventional beer, nor is it syrupy sweet like a liqueur, the article says, and is 8.5 percent alcohol by volume.

You may recall that I wrote about Frederick Miller Chocolate lager last month. A-B's offering, including their other seasonal brews, is a new wrinkle in the American beer industry. After witnessing the successes of vodka manufacturers offering several flavored vodkas, the Big Boys are offering more styles of beer than ever before in an effort to boost sales. And as they offer more seasonal beers, consumers begin anticipating them.