End Of Days For Boulevard Dry Stout



"I didn't think it would start this soon." -Random Internet Commenter

The Kansas City Star has reported that Boulevard is discontinuing their Dry Stout officially - the last kegs have been shipped out. Once the restaurants and bars run dry, that'll be it. Tap handles that originally held Dry Stout will likely find themselves dispensing other nitro stouts such as Old Rasputin, Deschutes' Obsidian, Left Hand Milk Stout, but more often you'll probably see Guinness where you used to see Dry Stout. That's because Guinness was one of the main reasons Dry Stout had such difficulty gaining traction outside of KC.

I want to clear this up though, the discontinuation of Dry Stout has absolutely nothing to do with the Duvel-Moortgat buyout of Boulevard. So the lamentations can stop right there - the last kegs went out in September, long before the buyout. Dry Stout was simply not doing well - and so the product has been pulled.

There wasn't enough demand for Dry Stout, so it went the way of Amber Ale and Lunar Ale and has been retired. "The Belgians" did not make this call, I promise that decisions like this don't happen in the first four weeks of buying a brewery - this was something that was a long time coming. So if you're still trying to vilify Duvel-Moortgat, you're going to need to find something else to do it with.

It's not surprising really - it was a fine beer, but it's not the kind that people go crazy for, especially when there is a very well known and well made alternative like Guinness. I asked a handful of people before writing this - typical Boulevard drinkers but not necessarily craft beer fans -  and most of them didn't even know about Boulevard's Dry Stout since it was a draft-only beer.

The good news is that if you can't bare the idea of Dry Stout disappearing forever, you won't have to. It'll return every year for the Kansas City Irish Festival.

Long story short, you didn't love Dry Stout, if you had, you would have bought more of it. The Belgians didn't come and take it out of your hand, it was never in your hand.

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