Ode to Tequiza

So back at the end of December my family had a big party, and a few of my friends and I downed a couple bottles of tequila that night. After this night the cry went up for a tequila beer. At this point I had just made my third batch of beer, and had a lot of different brews I wanted to make. Now, 5 months and 10 brews later, I found myself with a much better understanding of the process(find this place was wonderful) and decided that it was time to experiment.

So I began to think that the best way to make a "tequila beer" would be to take a citrusy IPA, and some lime peel, and then fortify it with tequila when it was in the secondary. I realize that this may not be the best idea, but I like to experiment and so I went and did it. Beer was brewed Saturday.

There have been a couple topics around of late about fortifying beer and citrusy hop combinations, and I borrowed a lot from them when formulating my recipe, so here it goes:

Partial Mash

# 7 Plain Light Malt Extract
#2 2 Row
#1 Crystal 20
#.5 Carapils
#.5 Biscuit Malt
#.25 Malodextrin

Hops
2oz Centennial 60 Min
2oz Cascade 45 Min
2oz Centennial 30 Min
2oz Cascade 10 Min

I added lime peel at 30 min, 10 min, and at flame out.
Pitched onto a huge yeast cake of California Ale yeast.

Right now there is a mason jar in the fridge with 1oz Light America Oak Chips, grated peel of 2 limes, and 1.25 cups Jose Cuervo Anejo tequila. I went with an anejo, because I think they are the smoothest, and it will probably mesh the best. We'll see I guess.

So if anyone has any thoughts, or wants to tell me I'm crazy or such, feel free.
I have more details on the recipe, SG and such but I'm in a computer lab right now... finished my programming a while before class starts.

Any time I have added fresh citrus zest during the boil, I've extracted some bitter/metallic flavors from it. I hope you get a better result.

Hmm... me too. I was pretty careful about avoiding any pith. I make a tequila-lime shrimp and usually get pretty good flavors from my lime peel even when the peel goes into the pan if I'm doing it as stir-fry. I guess only time will tell though.

How did it turn out?

What about soaking some oak chips in tequila for a few months?

Do you get desperado over there? It's a tequila infused beer. Quite nice.