Interesting debate on whether or not chili is a stew. It’s one of those things I never really thought about, and it seems weird to call chili a type of stew, but I guess it is. Only thing is, I typically thicken stews with either a roux or a flour slurry added toward the end, but I guess it doesn’t really matter how the stew is thickened. And hey, that means a gumbo is a stew too! Mind blown 
So here’s how I made my chili:
I started out toasting whole cumin seed, allspice berries (thanks for that idea @pulykamell - allspice was a fantastic addition), black peppercorns, dried Kashmiri peppers and dried Tabasco-style peppers I still had left over from this plant. Then I ground it all up into a powder.
Then I browned chunks of chuck meat. Removed the meat, and browned onions with bacon. When the onions were pretty far along I added diced jalapeño and Serrano peppers and garlic. Also added the chili powder I made, to bloom it.
Next I took a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and a can of crushed tomatoes, puréed them together, and added them along with a Bell’s Two Hearted IPA and some beef stock. The puréed chipotle / tomato mixture thickened the ‘stew’ up nicely.
I let it simmer for two hours, then adjusted sodium and umami to taste with a little Thai fish sauce, soy sauce, and plain old salt. Finally I added the juice of one juicy lime.
It turned out pretty excellent, I must say. The only disappointment was, for some reason, the chunks of chuck meat did not become falling-apart tender- they were still kind of tough and chewy, despite the fact I slow-simmered the chili for two hours. I’ve cooked plenty of meals with chuck steak / roast and I know how to get it falling-apart tender, so it was weird that it stayed tough.