When he was a chef in the Caribbean, Michael Carroll learned to cook with tropical ingredients. It makes sense that he would bring some of those flavors to his brewery, Band of Bohemia, in Chicago, especially where the winters could use a bit of warmth.
Pink peppercorns, the dried berries of the Brazilian pepper tree, are a hearty ingredient, Carroll says, and add a spicy floral note to beer. It’s why he found them the perfect complement to a rye beer, one that already has a touch of spice. For the beer he makes, he adds guava—pink with pink he says—because when you ferment guava, all the sweetness goes away and you’re left with a tart, funky, Caribbean terroir on the back note, a “jungle note.”
Then, Carroll uses a German yeast, but with the ingredients, the beer winds up tasting more like a saison. So, some might call this a fruit beer, or a spiced beer, or try to put a style on it, but ultimately, Carroll just calls it a rye.