Just in time for the spooky season, the city of Fort Collins, CO had a crunchy mystery on its hands: Someone had bought up all the boxes of Count Chocula cereal from two local grocery stores, prompting confusion and hunger in at least a few shoppers. Enough of a mystery to make the news, at least.

A puzzled shopper who says she usually eats vegetarian and organic food for most of the year wrote to The Coloradoan saying she splurges around Halloween on her favorite cereal.

“Every year I greatly look forward to the month of October when I can purchase a few boxes of this delicious chococlatey (sic) goodness,” she wrote, an effort that was stymied when both Albertson’s stores she went to were completely out of the stuff.

As it turns out, the general manager of Black Bottle, a craft brewing company, had plundered shelves in order to brew beer for the brewery’s Cerealiously beer series. Previous variations include Golden Grahams, Reese’s Puffs and Cinnamon Toast Crunch moonlighting as milk stouts, and this time it’s the Count’s turn.

“We put the cereal into a hop back so it doesn’t get into the beer,” the manager explained. “We did it as a joke at first, but the beer turned out well.”

As for the frustrated shopper, she could be in luck.

“I have a couple extra [boxes of Count Chocula]. I might have to award her a box,” he said.

It’s only right.

Missing Count Chocula found drowned in beer [The Coloradoan]

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