Admit your mistakes (and note them for later)

OK. I made a mistake. And I must now admit it. So here goes...

I commented on some thread recently that I thought my maris otter / simcoe smash was rather less exciting than I had expected. I stated that I thought it reminded me of my first all-grain beer, which was a smash with maris otter and willamette that only had 2.5oz of willamette (not enough). I said the first smash was a showcase for maris otter, and that my new beer was quite similar.

Turns out this was a labeling error on my part. That batch number was wrong on the bottle caps, so I thought I was drinking maris otter / simcoe smash when I was in fact drinking 2-row fuggles smash. (there are now TWO batches with the same number on the bottle cap, lol). Once I tasted this batch, I realize it was mis-numbered, because it's pretty darn obvious that this one is the one with simcoe. One whiff, one taste, bingo, simcoe. The 2-row/fuggles smash is the one that reminds me of my first smash, but obviously it's not a showcase for maris otter, it's just a malty beer that I didn't use a lot of strongly flavored hops on. Basically, I screwed it all up.

So what I learned from this is to pay more attention when labeling my beers.

But for all you vast quantities of simcoe-heads, my sincere apologies for my error. 4oz of simcoe should make any beer pretty darn hoppy, and a hoppy one this beer is. It's quite tasty, and more of a showcase of simcoe hops than maris otter (tho it's sufficiently malty). Actually, it's just about a perfect simcoe pale ale just like this. I recommend using maris otter and simcoe for a smash, with 0.5 oz of simcoe at 60 and the rest of it at 15 or less (whatever schedule you desire should work fine). If I had to ask "what is this beer missing?" I would answer "nothing."

[/confession]

So do post your beer and brewing confessions here. It's the only way to achieve beer nirvana without getting stuck in beer purgatory.

 

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