Butterfly Bakery of Vermont – Focal Habanero Craft Beer Hot Sauce
Bitter: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰
Salty: ⭐⭐✰✰✰
Sour: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰
Sweet: ⭐✰✰✰✰
Umami: ⭐⭐✰✰✰
Heat: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰✰✰✰✰✰
Quick Flavor Notes: Fruity, Hoppy, Tangy
Texture: Thin and smooth
Recommended: Yes
Ingredients: Familia Farms red habaneros, white vinegar, The Alchemist “Focal Banger” American IPA, salt
How do you improve upon one of the best habanero hot sauces I’ve tried, Butterfly Bakery of Vermont’s own Vermont Habs? You add beer of course. Butterfly Bakery of Vermont Focal Habanero is their newest craft beer sauce collaboration with The Alchemist Brewery and their first sauce sold on their own website using the Alchemist Brewery’s Focal Banger IPA (though they do make the Local Banger hot sauce sold only at the Alchemist Brewery and on the brewery’s website).
Butterfly Bakery of Vermont Focal Habanero has a thin texture and is smoother than other sauces I’ve had from the company. Many of the sauces I’ve had from BBoVT have had visible seeds and pepper bits inside, something that I enjoy, while this is fairly uniform (I think my bottle may have had only two seeds). I’m not sure if this is intentional or just the bottle I happened to get. The beer comes through strongly in the aroma as do the vinegar and the peppers.
While the ingredients between Focal Habanero and Vermont Habs are very similar (other than the addition of Focal Banger) there are a couple differences. Vermont Habs (at least the bottle I reviewed) featured red habaneros from Red Fire Farms while Focal Habanero features them from Familia Farm. Vermont Habs mentions organic distilled white vinegar while Focal Habanero just lists “white vinegar” without any extra descriptors. I’ve noticed that Butterfly Bakery of Vermont does change the farm source for a certain pepper between bottling runs sometimes which could easily be explained by differing farm yields or certain farms focusing on different peppers between growing seasons.
When it comes to the beer addition while both Focal Banger and Heady Topper are IPAs from The Alchemist Brewery there are some key differences between them. Heady Topper is a Double IPA with a higher ABV and uses six different kinds of hops supported by more malt. Focal Banger is an American IPA and uses just two types of hops – Citra and Mosaic, and uses less malt to produce a cleaner more focused flavor and let the two hop varieties shine. Both Citra and Mosaic hops are known to bring flavor elements of tropical fruits and citrus along with the characteristic piney elements all hops have to a degree.
Red habaneros are my favorite color of the pepper. Compared to the orange or green varieties the fruity flavors are more prominent and the vegetal notes downplayed in red habaneros. That holds true in Focal Habanero – there’s a great fruity habanero flavor at the front of the palate combined with tang from the vinegar. The Focal Banger flavor is prominent in the sauce as well. The citrus and tropical fruit notes from the hops play splendidly with the fruity flavor of the red habaneros. The bitterness of the IPA plays counterpoint to those fruity elements while the piney notes bring a refreshing quality. The result is a sauce that’s simultaneously straightforward and clean in flavor but with surprising depth.
Focal Habanero is extremely flexible just as most habanero sauces tend to be. It’s great in macaroni and cheese, on cheesesteaks, on chicken salad sandwiches, on chicken wings, and on fried catfish. Other than Chinese food, which is a notoriously hard pairing for any sauce, I didn’t find anywhere where this sauce didn’t shine.
I’m happy to give Butterfly Bakery of Vermont Focal Habanero Hot Sauce my recommendation. It’s a great entry into BBoVT’s already well-stocked pantry of beer collaboration sauces and a must-try for anyone who enjoys and of their other Heady Topper sauces. This sauce is all natural with no artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, or thickeners.
