does this sound crazy?

Sounds good to me! I really enjoy smoked beers, although I have not has a spiced smoked beer. If you get the balance of spices to smoke to beer right, it would be a wonderful beer. Check the recipe database on the site for a good smoked beer, or take a pale ale and replace some of the pale malt with smoked malt (I would recommend starting at 5% smoked malt). Please note that if you are making an extract brew the smoked malt has to be mashed, steeping it will add smokiness, along with a lot of starch.
At the end of your boil add some spices that you think would compliment the beer and the smokiness. I would caution you to use less spices than you might think are neccessary, because if you overspice it will be difficult to fix the beer, but if you underspice you can add more to the secondary. You might want to use less hops to allow the smokiness and spices to come through.

i was thinking for the spices just a small pinch of ancho chile powder and paprika. i would probably add this in the secondary and then again before bottling if needed. i guess its worth a try.

Jah said:

i was thinking for the spices just a small pinch of ancho chile powder and paprika. i would probably add this in the secondary and then again before bottling if needed. i guess its worth a try.

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If you arent sure, try dosing a bottle to see if you like the combo. definitely wwant to wait til secondary otherwise any aroma you may be looking for will get scrubbed out.

I've been wanting to try a smoked beer myself. If you end up trying, please post your recipe and results.

I think the smoked pepper beer is a great idea, but I question your pairing of the smoked beer pepper beer with BBQ, the flavors of the BBQ and the beer are going to be very similar especially if you spice your beer the way you spice your meat. I think you should try and come up with a recipe that will compliment your BBQ as opposed to meld with it... but that is just my 2 cents.

I totally agree. A compliment to BBQ would be a nice clean pale ale or hefe. Spice vs. Cooling, Yin and Yang..

I dunno, whenever I have smoked beer, I want to have BBQ.... but then again, I always want to have BBQ (and I always want to have smoked beer).

I'd suggest that you give a classic rauchbier a try, if you can find one. Are you an extract or an AG brewer? Rauchmalt does require at least doing a partial mash, so keep that in mind. Stay away from peated malt; it's OK in certain recipes, but it's not that classic BBQ flavor that it sounds like you're looking for, it's harsher, almost acrid.

I have a really nice Serrano Chili Beer on tap now. It's a very light chili flavor. Just a hint of heat comes through after about 3 beers.

If I were to make it again I would add 50% more peppers.

I think that sounds really good. If you go through with it, I would love to hear how it turns out.