Chilli-off

Friday evening, and I thought I'd do a chilli-themed Transatlantic Taste Test. Two quite different beers, with a chilli link. The first is from the Cave Creek brewery in Mexico and the second from Fallen Angel down in Sussex. The theory was that I could get to taste the beer once the initial shock of the chilli spiciness wore off.

Chilli wraps for tea!

Cave Creek Chili Beer is billed as a premium lager with a quite a big, not particularly scary looking chili added. It's a golden colour, the head collapsing almost immediately on pouring. Once the bottle's open the chilli provides a surface for the Carbon Dioxide to be released, so it bubbles away in there (a bit like a floating etched logo). The aromas are all green chilli and the taste, unsurprisingly, reflects that. Although it's a lager it didn't taste a great deal different to the Fallen Angel Fire in the Hole that I reviewed back in October. After the chilli heat had worn off (well, sort of) and I began to taste the beer underneath it seemed to be a pretty standard, sweetish adjunct lager, certainly nothing spectacular (unless you like your beer to have that distinctive sweetcorn taste).

There's the little fellow...

According to this video (thanks to Carl for pointing this out) you are supposed to eat the chilli. I did, and it didn't taste of anything. I'm not sure if that confirms my suspicion that it wasn't a particularly spicy chilli in the first place, or if it had been there long enough for all the flavour to go into the beer.

Next up was the Fallen Angel Black Death. This one's a bottle conditioned stout, Camra sticker and all, so I was expecting something quite different, and perhaps a bit more serious. However, given it's made with Naga chillis with a Scoville rating of 850, 000 I thought the spice might take a bit of getting through! If I remember rightly the Fire In The Hole (its little brother) suggests drinking it in shots. I didn't.

More chilli head than beer head?

From an initial sniffing it was easier to get some roasted malt and coffee aromas from the Black Death - as you'd expect from a stout - although there was loads of green chilli the beer underneath was much more obvious than in the Cave Creek. Again it poured dead flat. Once I'd allowed my palate to adjust (hammered it with chilli) some sourness came through along with another, bigger, chilli hit.

Overall I remain unconvinced. I love chillis, but I think that the reason beer is so great with spicy food is that it provides a contrast, and when the beer you want to quaff to complement the chilli high just adds to the high it doesn't quite work. I'm not sure that these aren't just novelty beers, to be consumed at student parties and the like, so maybe actually taking a bit of time to taste them isn't what they had in mind. Still, here's to someone brewing the world's first Chilli Gueuze!

Cave Creek Chilli Beer, 4.2% abv. £1.79 (33cl)
Fallen Angel Black Death, 5.2% abv. £2.29 (50cl)  - prices from Beers of Europe.

Nom...

Dark Star 'Sunburst'

Another of the three Dark Star brews I got for my birthday last month courtesy of my sister-in-law in Brighton, and an entirely different animal to the Espresso.

There was a slight haze to it, a golden, beer with a lovely frothy head. I got lemon on the nose, and on the palate it's a tease, it plays and flirts with resinous pithyness, while still remaining gentle, never leading you right into the grapefruit flavours. It's all tempered by a subtle sweetness in the finish, with a touch of spice, which makes it very moreish. OK, this was in a bottle but I can well imagine that on tap this would be close to my ideal pub pint if I was out for an evening rather than a cheeky swift one on the walk home. It's not the world's most challenging beer, but it's tasty enough to be interesting, and not all beer has to be of the contemplative (navel-gazing?) sort to be enjoyable.



4.8% Again, it was a present but as a guide, Beer-Ritz sell it for £2.50 (50cl)

Fallen Angel 'Fire in the Hole' Chilli Beer

Spurious attempt to clear my cold/cough/bad chest/man flu the other night. This is one of two chilli beers that Fallen Angel brewery - I'll review the Black Death at a later date.

No head, amber beer, poured with a slight haze (I'd had it flat in the fridge due to overcrowding). Left a load of yeast sediment in the bottle, and there was a noticeable fizz - lots of secondary fermentation going on.

Loads of fresh chilli aromas. A real prickle on the tongue rather than an out and out fizz. Great sourness from the fruit and a gentle warmth. Reminded me somewhat of gueuze beer in terms of how the fruit came across. Really interesting and different, although a whole 500ml serving was a lot - if it were me I'd be inclined to go for a smaller bottle size - but only personal preference.
Not the first time I've had this one and no doubt it won't be the last, I first picked this up at the excellent chilli festival in Brighton. Love this one as a chilled, refreshing change.



4.0% abv (50cl) £2.29 from Beers of Europe

PS. While on the subject of chilli products, there's a new Doritos flavour out: Jalapeno Fire. Generally the more mainstream snacks come up with all sorts of claims about how hot they are and are nothing of the sort, but these do actually have a bit of flavour to them (even if it isn't really jalapeno) and I thought they were pretty good!