Chile Pepper Off-Flavor?

So I recently brewed up a brown ale, this one to be exact:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f85/rainy-brew-day-205914/
With the only changes to the original recipe being, that I brewed 5 gallons, it wasn't a BIAB, I added cold steeped coffee at bottling, and I used German Ale Yeast 1007 instead of S-04, because I had some slurry leftover from a recent kolsch.

I detected some sort of off-flavor, so decided to send it to a homebrew comp to get some feedback. Every judge that tasted it thought there was chile peppers in the beer! 3 separate judges. They didn't even question it as an off-flavor, they just assumed it was a coffee/chile beer. In fact they loved it, giving it an average score of 30. It may have scored higher but I wasn't sure which style to place it as, so I did American Brown Ale and I got dinged by every judge for being out of style. One of them even said it could have been a top 3 beer had I entered it in specialty beer and they all commented on how they enjoyed the beer and the originality. It scored top marks from every judge in Technical Merit and Intangibles, but received the lowest score in the Style category.

Needless to say this whole outcome really surprised me, so I opened up one of the beers right away and sure enough, that was the off-flavor I was detecting, there is a very pronounced pepper aroma/smell! So here is my question: Where the hell did that come from? The only thing I can think of is the yeast. This is the first time I fermented 1007 warm, at 68°F to be exact. I was hoping for fruity esters, but it would appear this yeast throw off hella pepper esters? Anybody ever experience this? Any other ideas where a pepper flavor may have come from?

Sounds like phenols rather than esters to me, which I haven't come across with that particular yeast strain - it tends to be very mellow. I am thinking you may have picked it up from the slurry - how did you harvest, store, and prepare it for re-pitching?

Phenols, ok that makes sense. As far as the yeast, I bottled the kolsch a week prior, I harvested with a big spoon and slopped some trub into a mason jar (all adequately sanitized of course), which I stored in the fridge until brew day. You’re thinking it was an off-flavor from stressed yeast? I would buy that. Well if anyone wants a chile beer without using actual chiles, that’s how to do it, lol.

Any other ideas? Surely I'm not the only person to accidentally brew a beer that tastes like peppers, lol. I should mention, the first time I brewed this there was no pepper flavor. I think I posted my tasting notes on that thread in the OP. It was actually very good which is why I re-brewed a full batch of it. I knew I shouldn't have substituted an english ale yeast with that 1007!