Green Chile beer

[GoBlue59]

My wife went to the university of Missouri, and they have a local brewery that serves green chili beer. Obviously they are a little hush hush about the recipe, but they say they only use 2 row and Crystal malt. They also say they add 2 different chili peppers.

I'm not a huge fan of it but she loves it. I want to try to make a 1 gallon batch for her. Everyone I talk to says to either go pale ale or cream ale base, and use one type of chili in the boil, while the two combined in the fermenter.

I guess I don't know what to do here, and don't know what sort of hops or quantity of ingredients to use. Any ideas?

[wilcolandzaat]

I would go with. Saaz or hallertau hops. So it brings out the green chilli flav. Like 60 min hop and 5 min or flame out hop

[squeegeethree]

We just made a Chilli beer by making a tincture in vodka. Before adding it to the bottling bucket we dosed another beer using a syringe to get a measurement that tasted good. For our tincture 1.3 ml per 12 oz was the right amount and we multiplied by our total volume.

[GoBlue59]

What was your beer base?

[squeegeethree]

I did a Saison because it gives a natural peppery taste and mouthfeel that I feel compliments the hot pepper. I used Serrano peppers.

[GoBlue59]

Yea they use aneheim and seranno peppers. My idea was to start with a cream ale, add aneheim peppers to the boil, then make a tincture with aneheim and Serrano to add to the fermenter.

Im leaning towards cream ale because I think it has the lightest flavor profile. I don't want the peppers to combat the beer flavor, so I want something that will work well together.

[squeegeethree]

My instincts are just the opposite. You want rich maltiness to compliment the heat. Without that you will only taste the heat. I really advice you add the tincture at bottling/ Kegging to taste. It only took 1.3 ml of my tincture to be right 1.5 was too much.

[GoBlue59]

Ok that sounds fair. So besides a saison, what else should I target? Maybe a pale ale?

My wife isn't a huge fan of saisons, that's the only reason I ask

[squeegeethree]

Right you are making it for her not me. I forgot that If you are dosing to taste then you can make any base beer. Munich and Vienna malts might compliment the heat, I used Golden Promise. Maybe make the tincture ( Mason Jar + Vodka + 4 Peppers with seeds removed) and dose some existing beers to play first. Maybe you will discover something. I used the leftover syringe from my HopShots

[GoBlue59]

I agree with your method of dosing for taste. The brewery says all they use is 2row with some added crystal malt, so it sounds sort of like a pale ale. No idea on the hops, so I might just try to make a pale ale or IPA

[GoBlue59]

I contacted the brewery and they were super cool about it. They told me it is closest to a golden ale, because it has a slightly higher ibu (around 26). But they also add crystal malt, giving it a slightly more copper color. I'm not sure how much crystal malt I would add, and I'm not sure about the hops to add, but I'm getting closer!

[GoBlue59]

Even better, I talked to the brewery more in depth. 99% 2 row, 1% crystal malt. Dry hop the peppers without seeds.

My wife decided to grow her own peppers, and then I'm going to try to make a 1 gallon batch

[brew_cat]

So that's 1oz crystal in 10 lb 2row. Why bother

[GoBlue59]

I know. Even worse since I'm making only 1 gallon... Gonna be a tiny amount of crystal... It's probably only there for color.

But I'm trying to stay close to the original beer, hoping to make it a clone of sorts. If it turns out nicely, i can make a 5 gallon batch and really earn some brownie points with the wife.

[squeegeethree]

Use some honey malt instead and take it to 5%. The wife will love you for it.
Did I say that the pepper flavor settles to the bottom with time? It sounds crazy but it is true. You will want to bottle with as little rub as possible because 3 weeks in you will need to swirl the bottles to raise the pepper levels back to the mix

[GoBlue59]

I just made a beer with honey malt. Again, I don't want to make it any differently than the brewery does.

I didn't know that about the peppers though. Makes sense, that happened to some vanilla beans I had a while ago. Just had to roll the bottles around a little bit

[squeegeethree]

@GoBlue59 what's the update?

[GoBlue59]

No update yet. My wife wanted to grow her own peppers so I'm waiting until those are close to ready