Cascade Pilsner Smash
This Smash beer is using Cascade hops and Rahr Pilsner malt. Recipe is the following
2 LBs Rahr Pilsner
.39 oz Cascade 30 mins
.29 oz Cascade 5 mins
.32 oz Dry hops (3 days)
US-05 Yeast
Just like the Cascade and 2-Row I wanted to test more than just the malt and hops in this beer. Cascade is a standard hop that must people are using. It works well in a lot of styles of beers. If you are new to homebrewing this would be a good hop to start with. One thing that I wanted to test is how long does a beer take to carb up using the carb tabs. So the first set of notes are tasting this beer in the bottle for 2 weeks. If you use Beersmith you will know it wants you to age this beer for 30 days be for drinking.
Color: Looks like a 2-Row homebrew more than a light yellow color. Some chill haze.
Smell: malty hop. If you took a hop cone and some malt. Big strong hop
Taste: Very young beer, light bodied beer. Citrus lemon. Hop is very in your face young hop taste. Carbonation is very low.
Update 1 AKA Tasting 2
Steve did join me on this tasting. We I bottle beers I only have 1 fermenter out at a time.
Color: Orange in color. Lots of stuff floating in the beer
Smell: Sweet malt. We are not getting the big cascade smell we think we should get. Maybe need to change the times we add hops.
Taste: Light body some bitterness in the back of this one. Cascade taste not there. Almost taste like its over hoped. The bitterness could be grapefruit taste but I think its too much hops. Might want to up the malt bill to 2.5 LBs of grain.
Tasting 3
Color: Honey water dark yellow
Smell: Little sweet malt piney floral
Taste: Sweet malt floral bitterness. Taste like an older beer
Overall its tasting like an old beer. Almost like it doesnt have the backbone it needs to stay fresh.
Final Tasting
With the final tasting of this homebrew I can say for sure Im not a big fan of floral. I will still keep using floral hops but I wouldnt use a lot of them in 5 gallon batches. Head on this one was not big at all. Maybe the oils from the hops are killing it?
Color: Golden yellow in color. Nice and clear.
Smell: Sweet malt honey water. Hint of floral and citrus. The sweet malt is starting to take over.
Taste: Big floral citrus bitterness. The pine must be from it being old. We will have to see if other hops change like this.
Overall: As we would think this beer is starting to go down. This pilsner malt has changed a lot in this beer. Its almost like a C20 now. I would think it would go that far. The cascade has held up well in this beer. If it had some more backdone that honey water taste might not be as big.