Sweet Heat

Portland's Burnside Brewing has put a special emphasis on the Burn with its Sweet Heat, a 4.9 percent ABV ale with apricot and Jamaican Scotch Bonnet peppers.

Gilded gold at the 2012 in the Herb and Spice category, it lives up to the hype with a well-tempered balance of gentle sweet and heat over a clean ale base.

There is both pepper flavor and burn, but neither overpower, nor does the apricot sweetness, both of  which are often overdone in beers.  Not here. Sweet Heat burns as sweet and clear as moonlight through the pines.