A local brewery makes a Jalapeno Cream Ale that I like (they claim over 100 pounds of fresh jalapenos added but I do not know their volume). I was thinking that I would like to try to make one myself. A few questions: How much fresh jalapeno would one add to a 5.5 gallon batch (noticeable flavor but not so hot you cant drink it)? And, what would be a good hop to use for something like this? Would you add the peppers in secondary (like a dry hop) or at a different point in the process?
Make a tincture with the Jalapeños and add to taste at packaging time. That’s the best way to ensure you get the heat and flavor you want.
I wrote an article for Brew Your Own on pepper beers which you can access here: Turn Up the Heat - Brew Your Own
I usually roast the peppers and add them after fermentation, but others do things differently. Jalapeños are small and not very hot, so I’d think about 6 to 8 would work well in your volume.
I think I have tasted one of Jeff’s pablano pepper beers. I worked at The Brewshack in Tampa right after college. I remember really liking that beer. Was that you, Jeff?
Probably. I’ve made at least a dozen versions of Poblano Wit.
I remember a pablano alt beer. But….that was about 20 years ago!
Based on my experience I agree. Roasted peppers have a much better flavor that raw (at least in beer). Also, peppers have more sugar than you would expect. I have had some firkins explode due to adding peppers directly to the firkin. It may sound funny … but it wasn’t. 
Birdsong Brewery out of Charlotte, NC makes a Jalapeno Pale that ticks all the boxes for me. Sounds weird, tastes amazing.
https://www.birdsongbrewing.com/our-beer/year-round#jalapeno-pale-ale
Tastes like peppers, smells like peppers but just the smallest kick of actual spice right at the end of the sip. Magic.
I’d assume that any capsaicin would be too volatile to survive for long after bottling. Can’t help but think that if someone was able to make a painfully spicy beer, they wouldn’t be able to shut up about it.
About 4 years ago I made the Muntons Cerveza can with 6 or so green Jalapenos added, diced, raw, and at flame out. The beer tasted more like Green Pepper broth than how I would expect a jalapeno beer to taste. No hot detected.
Recently, I did a similar batch, but with hot red cayennes. I thought this one tasted more like the cayenne pepper, and they had a spicy burp to them.
In my second year, or so, of brewing I made a jalapeno ale. I don’t remember the details of the recipe but I do remember it had close to a pound of peppers added in the boil. I think they went seeds, membranes and all.
There were a very limited # of people who were willing to drink that beer. It had no head, fizzed like champagne and almost hurt to drink. After a year it started to cool down.
Paul
Fascinating. I love hot peppers, and I enjoy spicy beers, but I don’t like the green pepper vegetal taste in drinks (e.g., a lot of Cabernet Franc wine has a distinctive green bell pepper taste, as well a many Cabernet Sauvignons from Chilean terroir).
I’d be curious to try this, but I am afraid of ruining an entire batch of beer. I need to think about whether to gamble on this or not (my batches are generally only 2.3gal or 3.3 gal, so it wouldn’t be a ton of beer I’d be dumping…)
Habaneros have a particular pepper flavor of which I am quite fond, and might also work in that it would require less of it (relative to jalapeno or serrano) due to its higher level of capsaicin. I may have to try this…
You can “dry pepper” some of the batch in a keg or secondary instead of adding them to the whole batch earlier.
I use poblanos for flavor and a bit of habanero for heat. The combination works well for me.
Thanks Jeff. Great idea.
I have a split batch right now sitting in 2 FVs, of a Vienna malt base, both are ready for bottling (one was fermented with Belle Saison, 1.060 → 1.006; the other fermented with Kveik-Voss 1.060 → 1.010). I may split off part of one into a secondary brite-vessel (I have six half-gallon mason jars for exactly that kind of secondarying experimentation) to try that. I’m guessing the saison would be better, but might try one of each. That still leaves me with almost 2 gallons of each to go into bottles without the peppers.
I’ve made a few batches of a hatch chile pale that always went over really well. I typically used a blend of roasted and unroasted peppers to get a more complex pepper flavor. Roasted peppers have a more intense flavor and a little less greenness but maybe you want more of that raw jalapeno flavor.