This "Brewing with Hot Peppers"

dont like it ? dont drink it.

 

I drink craft beers and still think most IPAs taste look poop. I understand I am in the minority here....

 

Hot peppers in beer are for me the same as in food. Use a bit and integrate it into the other flavors. But pure heat is not good.

 

I know a lot of guys who hate IPA's too, but like PA's and lagers. I like great IPA's, and a lot of the IPA's are fairly mediocre at best, they really don't hit the spot. Drinking so much HT, Abrasive, and HF stuff changed my palate significantly.

 

+1000 to BB XXIII. The chilies were just present enough to tingle the back of the throat without being overwhelming. Loved it!

 

I like the little heat that comes through in Theobroma on a cool night. I really liked Ghost oh Hunaphu's but not something I could drink all the time. Spicy beers, I love them, but couldn't drink them often. Sometimes they are a nice little treat.

 

I thought this one was pretty good.
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/24464/67901/?ba=mudbug

 

I love me some hot fire so I am always looking for spicy beers and they usually disappoint with just a subtle tingle of spiciness. The hottest beer I have had was the Chili Lime Stout from Newburgh Brewing. That sucka had a burn that built after every sip so by the end of the glass you have a great warming heat that stays with you.

 

I think its time for me to man up and try a spicy beer. I'm long overdue.

 

I really don't review much but for that Ill have to.

 

I honestly don't understand that. If all you want is heat, tike a Thai bird chili, bite it down, the wash it down with a Corona or a Guinness, depending on your mood. It's not like nuances of the beer will matter much at that point. And I'm saying this as someone for whom food is never spicy enough--my mango-habanero salsa has to be stored in chemical glass and spooned with silicone utensils, and I've never met a spicy dish I was unable to eat. But flavors are easier to adjust in solid food, not so in beer. If you want heat with flavor, you need to turn heat down a bit or use the fruity peppers (such as varieties of scotch bonnet peppers, such as habanero). This is why this one gets me as well:

This simply makes no sense to me. Jalapeno flavor is basically a green bell pepper with capsacin, and even then it varies from one jalapeno to the next--two peppers from the same plant may have different degree of heat. The flavor gets more complex when smoked, but even poblano has more unique flavor than jalapeno. Habanero, on the other hand, has a bright fruity flavor like no other pepper. Where jalapeno adds a bit of flavor, habanero enhances some of the existing fruity flavors and adds more of its own. This is why habanero is often paired with mango, pineapple and/or papaya--they have a symbiotic flavor relationship. This is why I thought Stone got it near perfect in Ruination Tropical Heat--the underlying fruity hops were enhanced by habanero. If there was a complaint about that beer it was that they skimped on mango--should have used more and used the skins. From what I hear, Mango Magnifico goes in the opposite direction, but, of course, I won't know for sure until I try it.

 

Clearly I see how this is working for some people that enjoy heat. For myself I enjoy a cold beer while eating spicy foods and salty chips/crisps ect.. Perhaps a sweet & salty smoked-paprika stout comes to mind.

 

So by 'straight up pepper beer' i meant one that did not have other ingredients like fruit in it. To me, the Bent River Jalapeno Ale is sort of like a single hop IPA. It showcases one ingredient and it does it very well. It is a simple, drinkable pepper beer. I also did not mean to imply that it was overly complex. Yes, it tastes like a jalapeno. The lack of complexity doesn't make it a bad beer. It's very good because of its simplicity - sweetness of malt balanced by spice with Jalapeno flavor.

If youre going to pair the pepper with fruit it will of course make sense - habanero or jalapeno. Sweet and spicy is classic. I don't think that those are particularly complex on any level, however. They are good because they unify two competing flavors and your palate really gets a rollercoaster ride. Fun stuff.

 

I had both Ruin10 and RuinTHE on tap the same night and had no complaints about either one, especially not about complexity. FWIW, it was not "fruit beer"--it was an IPA with very slight fruit flavor, mostly from the hops, not from added fruit (it actually could have used more fruit). Peppers also pair well with fairly sweet stouts--again, no issues of lack of complexity there either.

I can see how a single-hop beer could be clean or pure tasting, but IMO it cannot compete on complexity with a properly used hops blend. Whether the same is true about pepper-only beer depends more on the beer itself--certainly no shortage of complexity in most pepper beers with other flavors that I tried (IPAs, lagers and stouts) but the pepper-only beers I tried were all complete failures. YMMV

 

Cave Creek Chili Beer anybody?

 

Personally, I'm not a fan of peppers in beer. I think the cayenne in Chocolate Yeti detracts from what is otherwise a really nice beer. However, the chilis used in Hunahpu really work well.

 

Yea...had this one once just cause. WOW that was a steamy beer.

I love pepper beers. Even the rough ones, it shows they're trying something crazy and new. And it gave me my idea for my Habanero Imperial Stout (took a chili beer and a super chocolatey IS I had at a tasting and mixed the two, blew my mind).

 

Chili beers are usually a meh or gimmicky thing for me. Then I tried Mexican Cake tonight and it showed that you can have some spice while maintaining balance and deliciousness. Same with Huna.