Chipotle IPA?

This may be kind of weird, but that's sort of what I'm going for.


10lbs US 2-Row
1lb Cara-Pils
1lb Crystal 80
.75lb Victory
1 oz Chinook at 60
.75oz Chinook at 30
.5oz Willamette at 15
.5 Chinook at 5
.5 Willamette at 5
2 small Chipotle peppers, probably in the fermenter, maybe at 5 min.
Dry Hop w/.75oz Chinook and 1oz Willamette

SafAle-04

Mash at 155.

Should result with
OG 1.062
FG 1.016
SRM 12.4
IBU 60.6

I am thinking of entering this in my first competition if it comes out any good.

I'm looking to get the FG towards the higher end of the style guidelines, since that seems more fitting for the season. I'm shooting for a redish color and spicy aroma to go with the chipotle.

I'm leaning towards adding the pepper in the primary, after reading an article from BYO.



Any thoughts?

A chipotle IPA sounds awesome! Never brewed with peppers but I'd be curious to know how they effect the hop presence.

The guys on Basic Brewing radio did a video podcast about chili beers including a chipotle beer. Find the "September 30, 2009 - Chili Beer Experiment" video podcast episode.

Thanks CD, I'll definitely check that out.

I did a Cave Creek jalapeno clone many years ago. Boiled a dozen jalaps, put the water in the boil pot along with the sparge. Boiled more fresh jalaps before bottling (just to sanitize) and put a pepper in each bottle. Actually came out very good.
Your chipotle sounds interesting. Will be watching for the outcome.
These days I am a habanero head. Don't know if I want to try that one. Would suck having a cold beer that's too hot to drink......

I'm pleasantly surprised with how this beer turned out.

On the downside, it was supposed to be an IPA and there is almost no hop aroma or flavor. There's also very little head. There is some heat in the finish, which I think makes it hard to drink more than a glass or two in one sitting, but in smaller quantities i think it makes the beer more interesting.

Although the hops don't come through, the chipotle came through in a big way! The aroma is strong--sweet smoked chipotle pepper--and the flavor is the same. Its big and bold, like drinking a chipotle pepper. I've never tasted anything like it.

I also got that reddish color I was shooting for and it came out pretty clear. With the exception of the minimal head, its a great looking beer.

It was also really interesting to taste the beer as it developed. After one week in the keg, it had no chipotle flavor, but a lot of heat. I was really disappointed. A week later there was still no flavor, but much of the heat was gone. After three weeks there was suddenly BIG chipotle aroma and flavor.

I really like this recipe. I've been planning to do a Chili IPA and have been wondering which peppers to use. I've was thinking about using around 10 serrano peppers. I also picked up a bag of about 10 dried New Mexico Peppers and was thinking about using these. I like the idea of the Chipotle peppers to give a bit of a smoky flavor to the beer. I will have to try to mess with the hops and see if I can get it a bit more prevalent.

I feel like this beer would be pretty difficult to balance flavor wise... if you got the hop bitterness to shine through along with the heat of the peppers I feel like your mouth might just say I quit and force you to swallow your tongue as an act of revenge. What about focusing the hop schedule toward building a big IPA style aroma with a and have the spicy smokey chipotle come through in the flavor?

I'm just trying to imagine hopping this thing up to the 90+ ibu range and pairing that with the heat and my brain can't even fathom what that'd taste/feel like .

I really like the how the beer came out, but the hops did not come through at all. I have renamed it "Chipotle Ale"haha. I did a taste test with Rogue Chiptole Ale and I thought this was much better.

So this will fall into the "will brew again category" then? I'm definitely considering taking a stab at a chipotle ale but I'm debating whether I wanna keg it or bottle it... Does it seem like kicking the keg in a reasonable amount of time might be a bit of a challenge?

Or I guess, more directly, If you brewed it again would would you go for kegging again?

Yeah, its definitely hard to kick a keg like this, bottling would be better.

I'd make it again. I might pull back on the hops, since I dont think they came through anyway. I wasn't initially satisfied with the head, but that might have been a carbonation issue because its got a good head now.

I also think i used 4-6 small peppers, without the seeds. I think I would cut that back to 2-4.

I've been doing a bit of research and think I'm going to try the following

2 oz Chinook at 90 min
2 oz Chinook at 60 min
1 or 2 oz Fuggle or cascade at the end of the boil

The recipe I found boiled 2 oz of the Chinook separate for 1 hour, then combined it with the rest of the recipe at the end. He added 1 oz of Cascade at the end of the boil, then another 1 oz of cascade in the secondary. He stated that next time he may use galena instead of chinook because after 2 months it was still very hoppy.

That may take the cake for "Least Balanced Hopping Schedule in an IPA."

Seriously, that's the bitterness of an Imperial IPA with the hoppiness of a pale ale... might want to rethink it.

We've got a guy in our club that makes 10gal of jalapeno pale ale for our Oktoberfest. Everybody who's not in the club raves over it, and nobody in the club wants anything to do with it. Done right peppers and beer may be good, but use them in moderation.

Like was stated in a previous post, it's going to take some experimentation to get the flavor balance right. I want the hoppiness and bitterness found in an IPA, but also want the smoky and heat of a chipotle to come through. When he tested the beer, he said very little hop aroma or flavor came through. I think, and it sounds like, the pepper is going to cancel out a good amount of the hop aroma and flavor. I will probably use a lower amount of hops to start, then build to where I want to be. I'd rather have an IPA without enough hops than one with too much that's undrinkable.