Hallertau SMASH?

[stanzela]

Hey folks,

I have a day off to brew and was thinking about working with what little ingredients I have around.

For Christmas I got about 10oz of fresh, organic Hallertau buds and I was thinking about brewing up something to showcase their profile.

My thoughts were either a SMASH, or to modify this recipe for a Creemore Springs Clone, substituting Hallertau for the Saaz that it calls for:

8.5lb 2-row
1 Lb Crystal Malt 40L
6.1 AAU Czech Saaz hops (@60min 1.75 oz of 3.5% alpha acid)
3.5 AAU Czech Saaz hops (@10min 1.00 oz of 3.5% alpha acid)

I've made the Creemore and it is DAMN good. Would I ruin it with the Hall? Should I just try a straight Hall. SMASH? I've seen it done with Vienna malt and with Munich, but would it be nasty with straight-ol 2-row?

Sorry, I've no experience with Haller. and really, not much with any of the nobles. Any advice is more than welcome!

 

[Bob]

I <3 a 2-row only SMaSH. It won't be very complicated, and some might not find it all that interesting. But I do it All. The. Time. and love every sip. See here; different hops in the beer in that post, but I've done it with US Hallertau and enjoyed it just as much.

I highly recommend brewing a bunch of SMaSH beers with the base malt you usually use. In fact, I recommend brewing something very, very basic, using the same mash procedure you usually use; this gives you an excellent idea of what characteristics, if any, your base malt brings to your beers. Then you can play around with hops and yeast to get more XP on how those things taste on their own.

Cheers!

Bob

 

[stanzela]

Thanks for the tip, Bob. I'm definitely with you re: the awesomeness of simple, SMASH beers. I just wasn't sure about Hall. with 2-row. As I don't have much experience with the hop, I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to be making a big batch of pine-sol or something.

Encouraging to hear that you've had success. Now, off to brew!
Matt