June 15, 2012
One of the best things about summertime is all of the great seasonal brews that are released for sipping in the sunshine. From saisons to fruit-flavored beers, breweries lighten up their stocks and peddle their sessionable, refreshing wares. If you’re tired of throwing back the same old pilsners, wheat beers and lagers, try reaching for something a little different this summer: chili beers. There are only a handful of Colorado brews to choose from now, but the category is growing in popularity and new ones are popping up all the time.
Justin Tilotta, wrangler of logistics, linguistics and
statistics at Twisted Pine Brewing Co., said that when it comes to brewing
their two popular chili beers, the process is a lot like making tea. The
brewery originally used a bung keg to experiment with chili flavors. This
old-style, oval-shaped keg is flat on both ends and has a hole in the side that
is stopped with a wooden plug called a bung. A bag of cut chilies is shoved
into the keg through the hole in the side and steeped in a base of wheat beer.
“The problem with doing it that way is that the flavor
changes every day,” Tilotta said. “It’s like a bag of tea in a cup. It took a
few tries before they got the proportion right and how long the chilies should
stay in the beer.”
Once Twisted Pine had Billy’s Chillies dialed in, it was
apparent that the beer wasn’t spicy enough for those lava-hot, heat-freak
palates. So the brilliant minds in Boulder decided to play with a new type of
chili: the ghost pepper. This beauty ranks at about 1 million heat units on the
Scoville scale; as a comparison, your standard Tabasco red pepper sauce rates
at a measly 5,000. Dubbed Ghost Face Killah and labeled the hottest beer this
side of hell, this is the beer for that friend who douses everything with
Sriracha, Tilotta said.
If the thought of mouth-burning beer is a little too far off
the beaten path for you, try a mole-style chili beer with a milder flavor or
trot your six-pack into the kitchen and start experimenting. Chili beer is a
great companion to recipes that need an extra kick, playing a spicy role in
everything from soups and chilies to sauces and marinades. Choose the
pepper-beer flavor profile that fits your needs, and dump a bottle into the
crock pot.
From the Fridge: Twisted Pine Billy’s Chillies
Billy’s Chillies has come a long way from its bung-keg days.
Twisted Pine now uses 120 to 140 pounds of chopped peppers in the bottom of
each batch of beer and lets it steep for a week before packaging it.
“We played around with putting the peppers in the boil, but
you don’t get that crisp pepper taste that tastes like fresh chili peppers,”
Tilotta said. “We do that cold-conditioning style. … Putting it in cold, it
seems to stick better.”
That fresh flavor comes from mild Anaheims, which contribute
the green chili taste, and a mix of red Fresno, jalapeno, Serrano and habanero
peppers. The peppery zip is strongest on the aftertaste, making your mouth
water when you breathe that bit of spiciness out through your nose. Billy’s
Chillies has taken off in the past year and a half, Tilotta said.
“We’re making 30 barrels at a time instead of just a couple
of kegs’ worth,” he said. “It competes with our amber and raspberry wheat to be
our second most popular beer.”
Get your fix
This year's Snowmass Chili Pepper & Brew Fest showcased
some great chili beers, but if you weren’t able to attend and get your taste
buds on some of the fiery stuff, take a sojourn around the state to one of
these breweries and check out what they have to offer.
• Amicas Pizza & Microbrewery, Salida — Green Chile Ale;
www.amicassalida.com.
• Aspen Brewing Co., Aspen — Habanero Pilsner;
aspenbrewingcompany.com.
• CooperSmith’s Pub & Brewing, Fort Collins — Sigda’s
Green Chile; coopersmithspub.com.
• Dillon Dam Brewery, Dillon — Dam Chili Lager; www.dambrewery.com.
• San Luis Valley Brewing Co., Alamosa — Valle Caliente; www.slvbrewco.com.
• Twisted Pine Brewing Co., Boulder — Billy’s Chillies,
Ghost Face Killah; twistedpinebrewing.com.
• Wynkoop Brewery, Denver — Patty’s Chile Beer; www.wynkoop.com.
Krista Driscoll
Hophead
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