Indeed, the inspiration for this beer came from several sources at once. One consideration was the hops shortage - my local supply store was rationing hops, so experimentation with other seasonings was on my mind. At the same time, I'd had the chance to try several "chili" beers recently, and I had yet to be able to taste the chili in any of them - what better way to test limits than brewing my own?

I selected a mild pale ale as the base for my experiment - a starting gravity around 1.055, and an ounce of Hallertau. Into that, I made three additions of dried chili peppers of 0.5-1 oz. each, near the middle of the boil, near the end, and just after shutting off the heat.

Fermented all the way down to 1.008, this beer has a very light mouth feel. While the smell is mostly chili, I feel the taste is mainly pale ale, and it's the throat and chest that get more of the chili spice. I was worried early on, from sampling the leftovers in the gravity cylinder, that this beer might be too hot to drink, but it seems that either the sweetness of the unfermented wort exaggerated the heat, or some of it was just lost to fermentation.

This beer turned out to be an excellent pairing with chili and salsa. It may pair well with other foods as well, but I'm not sure it could ever be drunk on its own - the spice does build up after a while.