Try?
Do you like beer? I know I do. How about hot peppers? I like those too. So it’s only natural then that I would enjoy a beer made with chili peppers, and over the years I have certainly enjoyed more than a few. Problem is, most of them just aren’t spicy enough for me (as I said, I like chili peppers). The spiciest chili beer I’ve come across has been Ed’s Cave Creek Chili Beer, each bottle containing a serrano chili pepper.
Until now.
That’s because I just popped a bottle of Twisted Pine Brewing Company’s Ghost Face Killah the other night. I’ve been telling folks that have tried this beer how I would love to find a hotter chili beer than those I’ve currently tasted, and they’ve all told me be careful what you wish for: you just may get it what you wish for.
I am assuming Ghost Face Killah is an ale, though the bottle does not say so (nor does the brewery website). The beer has an alcohol content of 5% by volume and 10 IBUS. Willamette and Northern brewer hops are employed, although as you saw by the IBU count not a lot of them. The beer uses six different chili peppers for seasoning: jalapenos, Anaheims, Fresnos, habeneros, serranos, and of course the Ghost Pepper.
Having grown jalapenos, habeneros, and serranos in my garden, I am quite familiar with them. I have never grown ghost peppers, but I did pick up a bottle of sauce made with Ghost Peppers a year and a half ago. It is, to say the least, extremely potent, and the almost full bottle still sitting in my fridge can attest to the small amount you need to add a lot of heat to any dish. The Ghost Pepper (aka the Bhut Jolokia) was until a few years ago the hottest pepper in the world, but had been recently dethroned by the Trinidad Scorpion when I bought my bottle of Ghost Pepper sauce. Just last month, December of 2013, the Carolina Reaper was crowned the newest heat champion and in turn knocked off the Trinidad Scorpion. In truth, when you get to this level of heat, I am not sure that a few more Scovilles make much difference.
Ghost Face Killah by Twisted Pine Brewing pours to a pale golden color with a minimal head of loosely packed bubbles and an appropriate nose of hot, spicy peppers. The nose also offers wafts of green jalapeno and habanero aroma, too. Taking a sip, you get a very light biscuit maltiness, but it doesn’t last long, as the spicy flavor and heat of the peppers soon takes over the show.
The pepper heat dances over the tongue and through the nostrils, and the heat is definitely at a higher level than the previous chili beer champion for me, Ed’s Cave Creek. Still, this beer is nowhere near as hot as I thought it would be. Ghost Face Killah offers flavor as well as heat, which is important. I get a green, vegetal pepper flavor in the beer all the way through and right on into the spicy pepper hot finish.
Ghost Face Killah is delightful, and although it advertises the Ghost Pepper most prominently, I don’t think they use a lot of them here. Still, that make the beer all the more drinkable. I don’t think you would drink more than one, but you can at least easily get through that one. I would imagine it pairing well with Mexican or Indian fare.
And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.
*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.
(B)=Bottled
(D)=Draft
