New poster and homebrewer here, with 5 all grain batches under my belt since November. What a great site! I made a Cream of 3 Crops batch recently, pretty much following Biermuncher's recipe except using Saaz and American Ale yeast. Fermented at 68 degrees, efficiency and attenuation within the recipe limits. It has been priming in bottle for the past week, so I sampled one and was really surprised at how American lager like it tasted to me (too much so for my taste). What gives it this flavor profile? Is it the corn and rice, the use of only 2 row malt, the low IBU? I'm trying to associate flavors with ingredients so my future recipe experiments have a better chance of turning out as I hope. Thanks for any insight.
Light Hybrid Flavor Profile Close to Lager?
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Bob
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First, permit me to warmly welcome you to HBT! 
I'm not the recipe creator, but being familiar with both the recipe and the style I feel comfortable answering.
In a word, "Yes." That's the answer to each of your questions.
Using only 2-row malt will often soften the flavor to what we IIPA-swilling enthusiasts will sneer at. Search some of the SMaSH threads here on HBT and dig some of the assumptions about flavor and body.
Add some adjuncts to pale malt only, and the flavor gets even more delicate.
Low IBU means something but only relative to the rest of the recipe. Low IBU in this beer means balance, where malt sweetness and hops bitterness ideally balance one another. This level IBU in, say, a Brown Ale of higher OG and containing Crystal/caramel and biscuity malts, and you've got a beer out of balance toward the malt side.
The point of the Light Hybrid Beer categories are to bridge the gap between more flavorful craft beers and the mass-produced light American lagers. Brewpubs and small breweries wanted a "training wheels" beer in their lineup to get customers liking the product enough to try something more flavorful, without going to all the hassle of lagering for weeks and weeks.
So yeah, it really is an ale version of an American Lager. In that case, it is precisely what it was intended to be. I drink the hell out of this and similar recipes in the warmer months.
Cheers!
Bob
I'm not the recipe creator, but being familiar with both the recipe and the style I feel comfortable answering.
In a word, "Yes." That's the answer to each of your questions.
Using only 2-row malt will often soften the flavor to what we IIPA-swilling enthusiasts will sneer at. Search some of the SMaSH threads here on HBT and dig some of the assumptions about flavor and body.
Add some adjuncts to pale malt only, and the flavor gets even more delicate.
Low IBU means something but only relative to the rest of the recipe. Low IBU in this beer means balance, where malt sweetness and hops bitterness ideally balance one another. This level IBU in, say, a Brown Ale of higher OG and containing Crystal/caramel and biscuity malts, and you've got a beer out of balance toward the malt side.
The point of the Light Hybrid Beer categories are to bridge the gap between more flavorful craft beers and the mass-produced light American lagers. Brewpubs and small breweries wanted a "training wheels" beer in their lineup to get customers liking the product enough to try something more flavorful, without going to all the hassle of lagering for weeks and weeks.
So yeah, it really is an ale version of an American Lager. In that case, it is precisely what it was intended to be. I drink the hell out of this and similar recipes in the warmer months.
Cheers!
Bob
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