Outback Chilli Beer

330ml at the Australian - Sydney. Deep copper red. Almost a barley nose, no head of note. Relatively sweet, moderate chilli thru the mid / latter stages. I just don’t get chilli beers - why?

Keep seeming to get butterscotch on the nose from most of these beers. Pours darker than expected, cherry amber body with same head. Chilli is in there but not helping out much.

In the bottle from the sampler pack from David Jones. Reddish amber with no head at all. Big carbonation bubbles. Slight green chili aroma if you use your imagination. Same crappy malty underfermented palate as all the Outback beers, but this one has a subtle mild pepper burn on the back of the tongue at the residual finish. For a chili beer, it is not painful. For a beer, it sucks like all the other Outback Brewery beers.

The new incarnation of this beer must be a lot better than the previous one. Having said that, there’s something about chilli in beer that just doesn’t seem right. It poured medium dark brown with a small head. Sweet and fruity aroma with a touch of spice (cinnamon?), all of which come through very obviously on tasting - nothing hidden here. The chilli is pretty optimal in my opinion, any less it wouldn’t justify the name and any more and my oesophagus would have a fit. It seems a beer like this is relying on the chilli to deliver what the hops don’t - I know what I’d prefer.

Lame Australian chilli beer that promises more than it delivers. Caramel colour, no head. Spritzy nose with some unusual ginger characters and winey notes. Some fruit on the tongue before a mild chilli "burn" in the finish. In fact, the chilli is ridiculously restrained. It’s not so much a flavour as a sensation. (Bottle)

NFOB 2004. Rather oily and odd. This batch did have some chilli presence. The base beer was pretty ordinary and the combination wasn’t great. Chilli beers blow goats.

Sampled AIBA 2004. The chilli taste is quite mild which is not a bad thing. Having said that, there is absolutely no reason to put chilli in a refreshing beverage like beer.

This is an interesting one, initial sweet taste upfront followed by a mild chilli aftertaste. Maybe the beer i had came for a better batch than the other reviewers since it did have a chilli presence.