New Jelly Belly Flavors To Hit Stores

Jelly Belly has long manufactured delightfully sweet flavors of jelly bean candies. Many of the classic tastes have been inspired by drinks, such as root beer and cream soda. Now, the company has taken its candy to the next level and introduced two new tastes that are off the beaten flavor path. Both draft beer and dark chocolate-covered Tabasco will be available in stores across the country in 2014.

Unveiling the flavors
Jelly Belly introduced their new products at the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco over the weekend of January 19-21. Since the candy’s unveiling, there have been mixed reviews. The writers at Food Beast received a sample and reported that the draft beer flavor does live up to its name. However, some parents are outraged that a beer-flavored candy now exists.

“Jelly Belly is no longer kid friendly and wants to introduce alcohol taste to children so they will want to experiment with the real thing. SHAME ON JELLY BELLY!” one parent wrote on the company’s Facebook page.

Others have only expressed mild interest in both new flavors.

Draft beer details
The Jelly Belly beer bean is the world’s first beer-flavored candy of its type. According the company’s press release, developers had a difficult time deciding what beer they should use as inspiration. In the end, they mimicked the taste of a German hefeweizen in order to pay homage to the company’s German heritage.

Consumers have been pestering Jelly Belly for years to make a beer-flavored bean. After testing various recipes and sampling beer, they finally found a taste they were proud to introduce to consumers.

“This took about three years to perfect,” Ambrose Lee, research and development manager for Jelly Belly Candy Company, said in a statement. “The recipe includes top secret ingredients, but I can tell you it contains no alcohol.”

Draft beer has been added to a line of other alcoholic drink-inspired beans, which includes pina colada and mai tai. The entire line can be bought online, though draft beer is not yet in stores.

Dark chocolate-covered Tabasco
Developers at Jelly Belly hoped to bring together the flavors of sweet and spicy in the new dark chocolate-covered Tabasco flavor. The candy uses actual seasoning created by Tabasco to provide the spice notes. The beans themselves are the spicy flavor and are dipped in dark chocolate, giving the candy a chewy and crunchy texture.

Though not yet available in stores, the dark chocolate-covered Tabasco beans can be purchased on Jelly Belly’s website.