Beer with chilli - chilli in beer - Chilli Beer
Trip Start
Jan 30, 2007
1
91
816
Trip End
Dec 31, 2011
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Mexico City,
Central Mexico and Gulf Coast,
Mexico
Monday, May 26, 2008
I don't know. But I do know that Mexicans like eating chillies. So do the people around where I live, here in south-west China.
And oddly enough, there have been some Mexicans here in Lijiang, growing chillies, for export to Mexico. One of those Mexicans actually looks like a Mexican gunfighter. Which could explain why he is no longer seen stalking the streets of the old town. Sauntering along as if at any moment a man might come out of a bar and challenge him to a show-down at sunrise.
Anyway, as some of know, beer is usually consumed cold. Not room temperature, but cool. And chillies, they are hot right? Sometimes too hot.
So what happens if you put together ice cold beer and red hot chillies? The answer: chilli beer (possibly better than chilli ice cream where you eat it for its coolness, then get the hotness and have to eat more of it - a neverending cycle that can only have an unhappy hot ending).
I've started brewing beer, and for my first beer, partly because I like the idea, partly in sympathy for the Mexican now departed, partly in sympathy for the people of Sichuan caught up in the huge earthquake, partly for my selfish reasons: the first beer I have put down is a chilli beer.
Chilli beer, is the stuff of legends. This is what one website says about its chilli beer:
A True Story- Honest!
The Arizona desert. Home to 20 million rattlesnakes, Scattered F-16 parts, and lizards the size of beagles.
chilli beer
All baked to a crisp 130 degrees. It's the kind of wide open desolation that makes people think twice before shutting off the car. And a place where a cold beer is pretty damned important.For Crazy Ed Chilleen, of Cave Creek, Arizona, (Pop.1328 including coyotes and cattle) beer was much too important to be trusted to outsiders. So, in 1989, he started brewing his own.
The town was suspicious. And became even more so when an entire brewery arrived in crates at the foot of Black Mountain, along with a German named Arnold. But after the first batch the people began to come around. The beer was good, damn good, So good in fact, the yuppies started driving in from all over to try it.
Something had to be done, So , whenever one of them whined for a "wedge of lime" Ed started putting a hot serrano chili pepper into the beer instead. Amazingly, about 2 out of ten actually liked the stuff. Surely, thought Ed, the Eighties had come to close.
Today Ed with Juan Olguin brew the original "Cave Creek Chili Beer" "Juanderful Wheat" "South of the Border Porter" "Ocotillo Amber" " Frog light" and the original "Black Mountain Gold". Chili Beer is sold in 20 states in the U.S., Japan, China and some other countries with strange sounding names.
Our motto is and always will be
"WE DRINK ALL WE CAN AND SELL THE REST"
I find the above well written and amusing. But its beer actually gets a D- rating in a well known beer website.
Today a Chinese man asked me what 'fire in the hole' meant.
fire in the hole
It was a repeated line from a movie he was watching. Funnily enough, yesterday I came across that as a name for a Chilli beer. ["Fire in the hole" is a standard warning, used in many countries in the world, indicating that an explosive detonation in a confined space is imminent. It originated with miners, who needed to warn their fellows that a charge had been set. This phrase is also thought to have originated back in the days of wooden warships where they carried large amounts of gunpowder for their cannons in the hold of the ships. A fire on deck could be dealt with but a fire below deck was almost certainly fatal.
The phrase was subsequently adopted by the United States Army and Marines to give notice that a grenade or satchel charge was being tossed into a bunker, spider hole, or other enclosure. It is not used for all explosions - throwing a grenade in the open is not announced, for example - only those surprisingly close.
This phrase is used extensively on film and TV sets by the special effects department whenever setting off effects charges of any nature (from weapons that fire blanks to a blood squib to huge fireballs). It serves as as a warning to the crew that a loud sound is imminent and as a final warning to stop the shot if there are any problems in any department. As a result the phrase is frequently used in MythBusters due to their extensive work on set as Special Effects technicians.]
Here's what writer Scott Russell for Brew magazine says about chilli beer:
From jalapeno to habanero, how to make scorching chili beer at home.
At the back of every homebrew supply store, there is a secret door.
Heat Rash from Mussel Inn
It's covered with posters from malt and hop suppliers, labels from local brewpubs and microbreweries, price lists and other paperwork. You'd never even notice the door, if I hadn't told you about it.The shop employees and management don't want the average customer to know about the door. It's reserved for "special" clientele, those in the know. You have to have a password to be admitted to the inner sanctum. I am about to reveal that password. Be careful, though. Don't use it unless you are the only customer in the shop, and only if you are a good, loyal, customer. Even then, count on getting a nervous laugh, followed by an apprehensive glance around the shop to make sure no one is listening. Finally, the owner may say something like, "Why don't you come back here out of the public eye, and I'll see what I can find for you ..."
The secret password? "Do you have a recipe for chili beer?" Most homebrewers, at one time or another, get this urge to try a chili beer. It's kind of a deep dark secret of our brother-and-sisterhood, one few of us will admit to the non-brewing population. These beers are the stuff of legend. Recipes and descriptions are passed down secretively from brewer to brewer. The experts at your local brewshop probably have their own favorite formula, but aren't likely to give it to just anybody.
What is it about chili beers that causes us to behave this way? The thought of combining sweet and bitter beer with hot and spicy peppers is, in a way, a perverse desire. On the other hand, the execution of this desire is a sure test of a brewer's skills. It's very easy to make a bad chili beer, and very tricky to get it right. Maybe it's the challenge that pushes us to delve into this alchemistic realm. Whatever it is, it's best we keep the experiment to ourselves until we get it right.
What do chili beers taste like? What do they look like? What are the do's and don'ts a first-time chili-beer brewer should heed? Well, come back here, out of the light, and I'll share my secrets. But don't tell anyone else.
First and foremost, a chili beer must be a beer. The chili is secondary. The beer itself must be sound, solid, balanced and worth brewing. Second, even if you love hot food, a chili beer will be hotter than you think, and too hot for most people, so don't plan on taking it to a neighborhood potluck dinner. Third, ask yourself the very serious question, "Do I really want to do this?" If you answer yes, go ahead. Fourth and final recommendation: wash your hands with soap (water alone doesn't work), before, but especially after handling the peppers!
Capsicum, the stuff in chilis that causes heat, can burn you big-time-your hands, eyes, nose. Some peppers are dangerous enough to warrant wearing disposable rubber gloves. Trust me, I've been there.
A word about peppers: The best peppers to use are little ones-several varieties can be found that are an inch to two inches long, and these fit neatly into beer bottles. Green, fresh peppers are not quite as intensely hot (usually) as dried red ones, and may have more sweetness to balance the heat. If you are not putting them into the bottles, you can use bigger ones in the boil or in the fermenter, which may be more economical. Part of it is presentation- a pepper in the bottle works like a worm in a bottle of mescal - a clear warning! The absence of a pepper may allow your beer to sneak up on the drinker.
Want a recipe? This is one for the homebrewer:
Golden Chili Lager
(5 gallons, partial mash)
It looks harmless enough (unless there's a chili lurking in the bottle!) but if you're not careful, that hot stuff will reach right out of the glass and tear your throat open!
Ingredients:
o 1.5 lbs. pilsner malt
o 1 lb. carapils malt
o 4 lbs. unhopped extra light dry malt extract (DME)
o 1 oz. of 4% alpha-acid Hallertau hops (4 AAUs)
o 1 oz. of 4% alpha-acid Mt. Hood hops (4 AAUs)
o American lager yeast slurry (Wyeast 2035 or equivalent)
o 7/8 cup corn sugar for priming
o 48-52 jalape-o peppers
Step by Step:
Heat 5 quarts water to 163¡F. Crush grains, mix into liquor and hold at 152¡F for 75 minutes. Runoff and sparge with 8 quarts water at 168¡F. Add DME, heat to boiling.
Total boil is 60 minutes. Add Hallertau hops, boil 45 minutes. Add Mt. Hood hops, boil 15 minutes, remove from heat. Cool, pour into fermenter with enough preboiled, chilled water to make 5.25 gallons. At 65¡F or cooler, pitch lager yeast.
Ferment cool (60¡F) for two days, then move to a cooler place (50¡F) and ferment two weeks. Rack to secondary and lager three to four weeks at 40¡F. Prime with corn sugar, add 1 pepper to each bottle, cap. Age cool (45 to 50¡F) for three to four weeks.
OG = 1.048 (12¡ Plato)
FG = 1.010 (2.5¡ Plato)
Bitterness = 20 IBUs
Too much? Come over to my place and try a nice chilli beer. Served cold.
Or if you happen to be in New Zealand, head to the Mussel Inn near Takaka and try some of their Heat Rash beer. "Heat Rash Chilli Beer - Golden Goose with a chilli added to the bottle. The older the hotter. Small runs available depending on supply of chilies. Usually available after the Easter chili harvest. Served with the chilli for those who can hack it. 4%"
