Sam Adams Chocolate Bock

The first time I ever had this beer was on draft in a bar in Denver. My wife and I loved it, but couldn't find it in Houston. Then one day while we were in Central Market there it was sitting there waiting to be taken home, and that's just what we did. Alas, that was two years ago and no Chocolate bock since. Well that's now changed. Sam Adams has released the Bock and my local Spec's has it! I of course immediately grabbed it up and took it home to surprise my wife who loves this beer. The formula is the following, take a basic German bock beer and age it on a bed of rare dark cocoa nibs from Felchlin®. Sounds tasty. This beer comes in a big 750 ml bottle with just a silver plate on the front letting you know its Sam Adams Chocolate Bock. Yep its a fancy bottle.
The Beer: This beer does knock your expectations. I think many would see this bottle and expect a high alcohol content, but this one weighs in at only 5.5%. It pours a very dark brown with a caramel colored head. Chocolate coco and roasted malts on the nose. The mouth is thick and rich, it tastes like cold 'hot chocolate'. You can taste the bock backbone of the beer underneath its chocolatey front. Its dark chocolate in a glass. Smooth a little bitter, but not cloyingly sweet. Well balanced beer and as expected this is an amazing desert beer. This one gets a B+ from me. Here's what the folks at BA had to say.
I wanted to give a little more info on this beer as I would love to give this beer a little higher grade but there are reasons why I didn't. While I think its great that Sam Adams has made an extremely complex tasty desert beer while keeping the alcohol levels low, I think the price for the fancy packaging is a little high (13.99). There are a lot of better beers out there for that price level.