What does habanero home brew taste like?

We’ll find out September 16, when our latest batch of home brew will be ready for quaffing (hopefully with friends who are coming down from NYC!!!  Yah!!!! I love when city folk descend on my humble abode!!)

Jake usually does all the beer making in the family, but this time I got to come up with the recipe.

Normally, neither of us are fans of “flavor beer” — raspberry nut ale, chocolate lager, honey pumpkin Christmas stout, blech, but I must admit I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of a hot beer, notably one made from wasabi.  Unfortunately, the root wasabi is extremely expensive. I’ve also heard it’s all but impossible to grow in Virginia, and using the powder form is pretty much out of the question so……

I decided to try a pepper beer. Jake brewed the base a week or so ago, which has been steadily fermenting, and this morning we added a quarter pound of ferociously hot habaneros and milder anaheims from the garden to the 5 gallon carboy.

See the orange float-y bits? Those are habaneros, a.k.a Mouth Satan

We bottle it in a week and a half, and then allow it to sit undisturbed for another two weeks. Hopefully, it’ll taste alright by the time our friends arrive. Five gallons of BAD BEER is A LOT of beer to drink.

Yet somehow…..Jake and I always seem to rise to the occasion.