First smash

[Magaly]

Hiya,

I'm looking to buy ingredients to make my first few smash-es, but I'm restricted to the malts they sell in my French webshop. Which of the following malts and hops make a good combination?

Malts: vienna, pilsner, munich and pale ale
Hops: Super styrian, cascade, admiral, challenger, columbus, east kent goldings, fuggle, hallertau, magnum, northdown, perle, saaz, strisselspalt, styrian golding, tettnang, tomahawk and mosaïc

I would like to do a few tried and tested recipes first, before I start to experiment... I like a nice light fruity/sweet beer and my friend likes hoppy bitters, any suggestions?

And while I'm buying stuff... What speciality malt should I buy to do a two malt one hop brew? They have Cara blond/gold/pils and ruby, chocolat, crystal, ambré, black and coffee light...

Thanks!

 

[rodabod]

Well, pale malt is a base malt. If it were me, I'd be buying that.

I guess you'll need to decide if you want a more classic British hop flavour/aroma, or a more modern American style. Or you could use one of the pilsener/lager hops, but I personally wouldn't.

 

[Magaly]

I think I would like to try one modern American easy to drink one, one classic British one (hoppy bitter) and maybe one more belgium style sweet and fruity.

 

[rodabod]

In my opinion, a lot of the Belgian flavour comes from the yeast they use which produces more esters and gives a banana-like taste. You can get this from using English ale yeast and fermenting at a higher temperature like 22C.

Cascade or Mosaic would make an excellent single hop American-style pale ale I bet someone here has probably already done that. Pale malt, hops plus US05 yeast and you're on to a winner. Keep the fermentation temperature fairly low at something like 18C to avoid "off flavours" and to try and get a clean flavour that doesn't taste obviously yeasty.

For bitters, I think it could be a more personal thing. My two favourites are Harvey's Best, and Timothy Taylor's Landlord. There are many clone recipe discussions around.

 

[winstonia]

Vienna works well too.

I had some Pale and Centennial left over and made one of these myself yesterday.

 

[MyQul]

In my opinion, a lot of the Belgian flavour comes from the yeast they use which produces more esters and gives a banana-like taste. You can get this from using English ale yeast and fermenting at a higher temperature like 22C.

If I was try for a belgian ale, I think I would use a belgian yeast, as the easter flavours would be different from a English ale yeast, to a Belgian ale yeast. I believe the ester flavour from belgian ale yeast are bananas and cloves