100 Bottles of Beer : Goin' for the Burn

I remember the first time I ever tried a Mexican beer. It was a Carta Blanca and I remember commenting it tasted like beer with chilies. Well, this was long before I began really learning about beer. I know I actually tasted the spicy Mexican food I was eating along with the beer. I know of no true Mexican beer that contains chili. Most Mexican beers are Pilsners or Vienna style lagers.

The practice of serving Mexican beers with a wedge of lime is actually an American marketing idea and is rarely seen in Mexico outside of tourist areas. It may actually have originated as a means of sanitizing the rim of the bottle or to keep flies away from it. It also mimics the traditional salt and lime with a shot of tequila. For unique treat, if you are ever at Margaritaville in Las Vegas, order a Loaded Corona. It is a bottle of Corona, which I normally do not care for at all, with a shot Bacardi Limon rum poured into the space at the top of the bottle. It makes the first half of the bottle taste great, but eventually you do realize you are drinking Corona.

But I digress; we are here to talk about chili beers. I believe it to be a purely American invention. Most chili beers are either a light ale or lager (pilsner) with chili juice, oil, or whole peppers added, typically jalapeno. They range from very mild to very hot but, to my palate, seem rather one dimensional, lacking something. So, I came up with the following based on a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale recipe with a couple twists of my own.

Chipotle Cerveza

10 lbs Northwest Pale malt

½ lb Cara-pils malt

½ lb 40L Crystal Malt

6 oz Piloncillo (Mexican unrefined cane sugar)

1 oz Homegrown Chinook whole cone hops (90 min)

½ oz Homegrown Nugget/Mt. Hood blend whole cone hops (20 min)

1 oz Homegrown Cascade whole cone hops (5 min)

1 tsp Irish Moss (15 min)

UCCS 1056 American ale yeast

12 Chipotle peppers (home roasted, mesquite-smoked, dried jalapenos)

Priming: ¾ cup corn sugar & ¼ cup DME

Heat 3 gallons water to 132F, remove from heat and add all milled malts, resulting in a 122F mash, cover and let mash for 30 minutes. Raise temp to 150F by reapplying heat and adding 1.5 liter near boiling water, remove from heat and cover for 60 minutes. Lauter and sparge with 150F water and collect 6 gallons of wort.

Add Piloncillo sugar and bring to boil adding hops and Irish Moss at times indicated for a total 90 minute boil. Cool wort and pour into fermenter, topping to 5 ½ gallons with cold water, and pitch the yeast. O.G. was 1.058.

After 5 days in the primary, rack to a secondary fermenter and add the chipotle peppers in a hop bag. A note on how the peppers were prepared. The fresh jalapenos were roasted and smoked whole over a mesquite wood fire and then dried in a food dehydrator. They were then stored in a vacuum container until ready for use.

After 16 days in the secondary the beer had cleared very nicely and was ready to bottle. F.G. was 1.006 for an ABV of 5.8%.

The beer was a nice clear amber color with minimal chill haze. It had very nice smoky aroma and a good jalapeno pepper bite. The hops could have been a little heavier and the carbonation was light but adequate.

There was a bit of a boiled vegetable flavor which is normally considered a defect, dimethyl sulphide or DMS. In this case it is to be expected because we did add vegetable matter in the form of the peppers. The beer drew mostly positive comments except for one I can recall, my brother said it was like drinking beer from an ash tray. I guess he didn't like the mesquite smoke.

Our next chili beer was somewhat of an accidental inspiration. Bristol Brewing had made a one time beer they called Edge City Pale Bock. The style of this beer would be a Maibock or Helles Bock. I remember it to be very tasty, sort of a golden pilsner. Anyway, I was drinking one of these when a friend and customer, Karl Nelson, brought in some peppers he had gotten at a farm near Pueblo, CO. He said they were Cassabella peppers. They looked like miniature jalapenos about one inch in length and ranged from bright yellow to orange to bright red. They were very hot and very very tasty. I had nibbled down about half the pepper and it was getting hotter as I got to the fat end of the pepper. I tossed the rest of the pepper into my glass of Pale Bock and...voila! A new inspiration for a beer was born.

This recipe is based on Bristol's Pale Bock and the base recipe for the Eisbock we discussed in part 24 of our journey and, of course, inspiration.

Casabella Bock

6 lbs American 2-row malt

6 lbs Northwest Pale malt

2 lbs German Vienna malt

2 lbs German light Munich malt

1 oz Hallertau Mittelfruh whole cone hops (60 min)

1 oz Czech Saaz whole cone hops (60 min)

1 oz Hallertau Mittelfruh whole cone hops (20 min)

1 oz Czech Saaz whole cone hops (20 min)

½ oz Homegrown Perle whole cone hops (5 min)

1/8 oz Homegrown Fuggle whole cone hops (5 min)

1/8 oz Homegrown Hallertau whole cone hops (5 min)

1 tsp Irish Moss (15 min)

UCCS 2206 Bavarian Lager yeast.

20 Dehydrated Casabella peppers

Priming: ½ cup corn sugar & ½ cup DME

Heat 4 gallons of cold water to 125F and add the milled grains, rest for 30 minutes. Raise temperature to 148F by heating and infusing hot water, let rest for 15 minutes. Again raise temperature to 156F and rest for another 15 minutes. Lauter and sparge with 180F water and collect 7 gallons of wort.

Bring to boil and let boil for 30 minutes before adding hops and Irish Moss at times indicated for a total 90 minute boil. Remove the hops, cool the wort, and pour into the fermenter with yeast. O.G. 1.070

The fermentation finally slowed down and was ready to rack to secondary after 12 days. I had been in a bit of a quandary as to how many peppers to add at this point. My previous chili beer used 12 smoked jalapenos. The casabellas are smaller but much hotter. I have 20 of them dried - throw caution to the wind and use all 20? - Yes! So, rack to secondary on 20 dried casabella peppers in a hop bag.

I left the beer on the peppers for 10 days before bottling. It had cleared very nicely and the peppers were hot but not overpowering, although it was hotter than the Chipotle Cerveza. My first taste reminded me of a shot of whiskey, malt flavor with a lingering alcohol burn. F.G. 1.020 5.75% ABV

After some bottle conditioning the carbonation was right on, nice clear amber color with minimal chill haze, and everyone who tried it raved about it. This was excellent stuff. While it had strong chili pepper heat and flavor it also retained the maltiness of the Pale Bock. Karl still asks me every year if I need more peppers to make it again. So, I did make it again.

Casabella Bock II

6 lbs American 2-row

6 lbs Northwest Pale malt

2 lbs German Vienna malt

2 lbs German light Munich malt

1 oz Hallertau Tradition hop pellets (60 min)

1 oz Sterling whole cone hops (60 min)

1 oz Hallertau Tradition hop pellets (20 min)

1 oz Sterling whole cone hops (20 min)

1 oz Perle whole cone hops (5 min)

1 tsp Irish Moss (15 min)

UCCS 5923 Augustiner Lager yeast.

24 Dehydrated Casabella peppers

Priming: ½ cup corn sugar & ½ cup DME

As you can see, the grain bill is identical but I had to change the hops and yeast due to availability. I also slightly increased the quantity of peppers. The brew method and fermentation times were identical. For some reason I got better conversion in the mash this time as the O.G. was 1.080, .010 higher than the first time.

At bottling the F.G. was 1.021 for 7.6% ABV, significantly higher than the first brew. It took a bit longer to bottle condition. It finished hotter, stronger, and sweeter, with a flavor a bit like a barley wine. It really could have used more hops. Overall, it was very good, but not as good as the first one.

So, there we have three different chili beers. Two should have been the same but were not, showing the changes that can occur with some subtle changes in the recipe.

That's three more down leaving 13 bottles of beer on the wall. Until then...

Adios mi amigos...and Keep on Brewin'

To be continued...