Add some spice to your life with chile beer
The first time I ever tasted a chile beer was in Denver at Wynkoop Brewing Company — Patty’s Chile Beer. Smooth and spicy, with a wonderful slow burn that made me want more, sip after sip… After tasting this, I knew I had to brew a chile ale at home.
I wanted that same subtle, mild heat with a nice, slow burn in the finish. I definitely didn’t want a ruthless, barely drinkable ball of fire. I knew I had to be careful, so when formulating the recipe the first time around, I primarily stuck to mild chiles.
I love the subtle heat from poblano chiles, so I like to use fresh poblanos, along with anchos, which are actually dried poblanos. For a 5-gallon batch, I use 20 oz poblanos (about eight chiles) for a bright, green chile flavor and a little heat. The dried anchos have a richer, sweeter chile flavor than their fresh counterpart. I use only 12 g dried anchos (about 2 dried chiles). I give both types of chiles a rough chop, place them in a large grain bag, and put them in for the last 10 minutes of the boil (seeds, stems, and all!).
The first time my husband and I brewed this beer last year, we decided to err on the side of caution and just stick with the poblanos and anchos at first. After fermentation was complete, we tasted it to check for heat. It had a great green chile flavor and a very mild spice, but needed just a touch more of an up-front kick.
For this, I decided to make a chile tea using five dried chiles de arbol. I roughly chopped the chiles, placed them in 1 cup of water, brought it to a boil in the microwave, then let it steep for about 10 minutes. After straining the tea, I added it directly to the secondary.
I was shooting in the dark a bit with the whole chile-de-arbol-tea thing… But thankfully, it worked like a charm! It came out so good that we decided to brew it exactly the same way the second time around this year. The only difference is that this time, we used poblanos grown in our very own garden! We picked them this summer, froze them whole, then defrosted and chopped them before use.
If you’re interested in brewing a chile beer, I would suggest going with the same guess-and-check method I used. Start with mild chiles and work your way up in the secondary. A chile tea is a great way to add heat without the risk of ruining your whole batch, since you can add a little at a time, stir, take a sample, and adjust as necessary.
Another great thing about chile beer is that there are so many varieties of chiles out there — endless experimentation! Plus, you can use homegrown chiles, and judging from the number of people that like to grow their own hops, I imagine this is an appealing idea to many.
Who else has brewed a chile beer? What kind of chiles do you like to use? Have your experiments resulted in a potable beer or something downright dangerous? I’d love to hear all about it!
10 Comments to “Add some spice to your life with chile beer”
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I recently created my first chili pepper beer, but I approached mine with one major goal and that was to create the most absurdly intense beer possibly. I think I have succeeded with flying colors. This is a Smoked Habanero Imperial Stout and everything about it is powerful. For the chili flavoring I added three oz of locally grown habaneros which had been smoked over pecan wood the night before. I added the seeds and all with about 20 minutes left on the boil (I did not place these in any bag but instead allowed the peppers to remain in the wort after boiling). I also amped the grain bill a ton for this 5-gallon batch to make sure that this beer provided a pretty significant punch in the alcohol content. This worked great as the current abv seems to be just around 11% making it the strongest beer I have brewed to date. The mix of the strong alcohol presence, the thick smoky flavor, and the very real and powerful spiciness truly has made this a ridiculous beer. But even with all that intensity, I and several of my friends, have found it perfectly drinkable (I just make sure to stress that slinging it back like a pro might not be the most advisable pursuit).
Interestingly, my friend Brian C. (who happens to be a fellow blogger of yours here on the HopPress) brewed a chili flavored beer at the same time that I made mine. While both are chili Stouts the two are incredibly different in the end product. It is one of my favorite things about the whole homebrewing scene is just how much variation can occur even within the same beer style.
Great post!
Your Smoked Habanero Imperial Stout sounds really intense! I’d love to try a melt-your-face-off chile beer like that, but not sure I’d want to brew a full 5-gallon batch, since it’s not exactly a session beer!
Your comment sparked an idea for experimenting on a small scale with this. Brew a strong imperial stout (or whatever base beer you want) sans chiles, ferment as normal, then at bottling/kegging time, separate out a small portion and make a habanero chile tea using the method I described above. You could even go wild and separate it into 5 1-gallon batches and add different chiles of varying amounts for each batch!
Thanks for the comment, and watch out for heartburn with that massive beer of yours
One of my favorite beers that’s fairly hard to find is Rogue’s Chipotle Ale. Since it is hard to find, my friends and I decided we better figure out how to brew it. We’ve made a few attempts at it and the best version so far was to add a couple chipotle peppers to the secondary of a Red ale – brewed along the lines of Yukon Arctic Red.
Soaked the dried chipotle’s in Vodka for a few hours first. We ended up with a very nice smoky taste up front, and a slight burn at the end.
Save the chipotle vodka – a little bit goes very nicely in a martini.
I have to say, I was nearly put off any form of chile beer by a brew called Dave’s Cave Creek Chili Beer… it actually had a whole Serrano chili pepper in the bottle. I had two sips, and was belching peppers for three days.
[...] • Steph Weber – Add Some Spice to Your Life with Chile Beer [...]
I’ll have to keep an eye out for the Rogue Chipotle Ale, never tried it.
Great idea with the chipotle vodka. I bet that would make a mean Bloody Mary too!
I just tried my first chili beer with some leftover wort from my last batch. I used some willamette hops and 6 varieties of peppers. If this one turns out well then I’ll be going all out next time and brewing a chili imperial stout.
Thanks for the post Steph. I am growing alot of poblano this year as well as Anaheim, Thai, and Jalapeno. I’ve been throwing some ideas around for a smoked poblano porter and your article has helped a bunch. Can’t wait to brew with the poblanos!
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