Host Alec Latham has posted the roundup for The Session #119: Discomfort Beer.
I was particularly drawn to Jay Brooks’ post (the one we all had to wait for), because it is about a) chile beers and b) how picky and eater he is.
So unlike Alec’s experience with Black IPAs, or many people, including myself, warming to a new type of beer, chili beer seems like a love it or hate it kind of beer, with little ground in the middle. And you won’t be surprised to learn I hate them. How could there be any middle ground? Maybe your tolerance for spiciness increases over time, but that has not been my personal experience. My wife has been trying for over twenty years, as did many girlfriends before that. And while I do, believe it or not, eat many more foods today than I did when I was a child and in the intervening years, many people are still shocked at how picky I am and usually chuckle at what I consider to be too spicy. C’est la vie.
I can testify he is right about b) although I disagree, for the most part about a). If you judge chile beers based on Ed’s Cave Creek Chili, an out of balance gimmick, then he is right. But we lived in New Mexico for 13 years, and one of the reasons we moved there is because we like chiles. A well-made green chile beer is not about bringing the heat; it is about the aroma or roasted chiles that hangs in the air on Albuquerque’s north Fourth Street during chile harvest.
That is as pleasantly powerful as the my first beer memory is unpleasantly powerful.