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?
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
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.
I did a Saison because it gives a natural peppery taste and mouthfeel that I feel compliments the hot pepper. I used Serrano peppers.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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!
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
So that’s 1oz crystal in 10 lb 2row. Why bother
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.
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
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
@GoBlue59 what’s the update?
No update yet. My wife wanted to grow her own peppers so I’m waiting until those are close to ready
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Any update o the Green Chile Beer? I am making one now, 4 weeks I should have something to taste. Here is what I did.
- Started with 3 Gallons Czech Pilsner in a secondary vessel in final weeks of lagering.
- Added roasted and coarsely chopped (8 ounces) of Anaheim Green Chilies in a cheesecloth bag. Removed stems only.
- I’ll leave the peppers in for two weeks, remove the bag, and bottle as usual.
- Two weeks after bottling I’ll give it a taste.
FYI, I chopped and added skin, seeds, and all hoping to get a little heat from the seeds and membranes. First attempt, we will see.
Incidentally, I also added a Saaz Hop Tea at the same time. I tasted my lagering beer and it did not have enough Saaz aroma and flavor. I steeped Saaz pellets at 170F for 45 minutes, French pressed it, cooled it and added it along with the roasted peppers.
I used a grain bill consisting of mostly 2-row, used English ale yeast, and germal Perle hops. Only made 1 gallon due to experimentation.
Added sanitized Anaheim peppers during the back end of the primary, only removed the lids.
I was going to add Serrano peppers to the secondary, but they didn’t grow well in the garden. Luckily our jalapenos did grow well. They aren’t as hot as Serrano but they did the trick. Added them to the secondary.
Turned out pretty good. Nothing too hot, definitely a little kick. Kind of a zing
