Josie Sexton

The (Fort Collins) Coloradoan

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — The case of the missing Count Chocula cereal boxes was solved Friday, when a craft brewer admitted to buying them to brew in a small-batch beer.

Black Bottle Brewery in Fort Collins bought two Albertsons stores' inventories of the iconic chocolate and marshmallow-bit cereal, puzzling at least one shopper in the process.

"Every year I greatly look forward to the month of October when I can purchase a few boxes of this delicious chococlatey (sic) goodness," Kristen Clark wrote in a letter to The Coloradoan.

Clark is a "vegetarian and organic food eater for the most part," but said she makes an exception once a year at Halloween for the 43-year-old General Mills cereal.

Every year, that is, until this year.

Black Bottle general manager Steve Marrick wasn't sure if Clark was joking, but he said, "I have a couple extra. I might have to award her a box."

The reason for the brewery's large purchase, Marrick said, is the brewery's Cerealiously beer series, a creation that already has sogged the likes of Golden Grahams, Reese's Puffs and Cinnamon Toast Crunch into a milky stout.

The process is similar to dry-hopping a beer: "We put the cereal into a hop back so it doesn't get into the beer," Marrick said. "We did it as a joke at first, but the beer turned out well."

Cerealiously Count Chocula will be released Oct. 30, but beer and cereal fans have more iterations to look forward to, including Lucky Charms for St. Patrick's Day and Cap'n Crunch for another occasion.

Clark, for one, said she won't be partaking in any Count Chocula beer.

"Boo Berry and Franken Berry are available at Albertsons, but as I pass by them each time the void that is Count Chocula fills my heart."

The Coloradoan performed a quick search at another Fort Collins grocer, North College Avenue's King Soopers, and a store representative confirmed "plenty" of boxes of all three monster cereals.