Country Boy Nacho Bait Habanero Blonde Ale

Nacho Bait Habenero Blonde Ale. Country Boy Brewing. Georgetown, KY.

ABV not listed.

Ale brewed with habanero.

We’ve done a fair bit of cooking with habanero and other peppers recently. Interested to see how a hot pepper beer tastes.

Appearance

Semi-translucent orange, moderate head.

3

Smell

It does smell like habanero. But not like fresh, delicious habanero; like habanero that’s been processed and sitting in a can since January 29.

Hard to get anything else out of it.

2

Taste

We make scrunchy faces and laugh a lot on the first drink. It has a slight habanero burn, and tastes like habanero.

It’s hard to make any tasting notes when the aftertaste is just peppery-hot.

It’s not complex or interesting, just slightly hot and tastes like habanero, but it also tastes like the worst habanero-derived food flavoring you’ve ever eaten, not like a deliciously fresh habanero.

I can’t appreciate the beer qualities of this in any way. Without the habanero would this be a good beer? I have no idea and kind of don’t want to think about it. My mouth is justly lightly on fire.

1

Mouthfeel

Whatever I don’t care at this point.

3

Overall

This feels wrong: when eating spicy food, a crisp beer is the perfect accompaniment. What is this the perfect accompaniment for? Something bland surely. Or something sour. Or maybe ice cream.

Aimee serves some pickled ginger, and I momentarily hope that the two are a pair.

But they are not.

I challenge Aimee: “we’ve had some bad beers. Is this the worst we’ve had?” And she rightly recalls that the Brewdog near-beer was definitely the worst. I can think of a couple others that I was repulsed by.

So this is not the worst beer we’ve had!

Aimee seems to like it more than me. I hate it. We don’t finish it.

This is bad beer dressed up with a bad gimmick. Make a good beer first, then add the garbage. I remain willing to try a delicious NEIPA with some habanero in it.

1