Chili Beer
I first heard about spicy beer a few years ago, but wasn’t able to sample it until last year. I love spicy food so I figured that spicy beer every once in a while would be nice.
My first taste was at Cerveza Artesanal El Bolson in El Bolson, Argentina in the foothills of the Andes. I camped at the brewery for a few days and sampled quite a few of their brews. The Aji (Spanish for “chili”, I learned in South America that they use ‘aji’ to refer to peppers, Chile refers only to the country). The beer was spicy and good, one of my favorites that they had.
A few months ago when I came to Durango for Christmas I saw some beers at the liquor store with chili peppers floating in the bottoms of them. Curious I picked one up and saw that it was brewed in Tecate, Mexico. Kinsee and I thought that was weird as we’d just driven 13 hours from Tijuana, we’d visited Tecate a few times and never seen or even heard of a chili beer down there, but we picked up a six pack and were pleasantly surprised. Cave Creek Chili Beer isn’t the best beer around, in fact I’m pretty sure it’s just Tecate with a chili pepper in it, but the spicy bite is pretty good every once in a while. It’s Kinsee’s favorite beer lately.
While at the liquor store the other day I spotted Billy’s Chilies which according to the label is a malt beverage with chilies added. Made in Boulder and part of the Timberline Series by Twisted Pine Brewing, I picked up one of each and did a little taste test.
They both taste surprisingly similar. The label on Billy’s Chilies claims it has five different peppers in it. It doesn’t however have a whole pepper in the bottom.
The Cave Creek beer is a little spicier, and since the fact is that it isn’t great beer we’re drinking here, the spicier the better (to a point).
I won’t be drinking chili beer too often, I’ll stick to stronger craft brews most of the time, but for a spicy alternative these aren’t bad.
