If you haven’t yet brewed a SMaSH beer, then you’re certainly missing out on one of the very best ways to get to know your ingredients. Short for “Single Malt and Single Hops,” a SMaSH beer includes just what the name suggests: one kind of malt and one hops variety. You also get one yeast strain, but SMaSHaSY doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Stripping beer down to its essential elements provides an opportunity to learn how ingredients work together, and the possibilities are endless. Pale malt and Centennial with the Chico strain (Wyeast 1056/ White Labs WLP001). Maris Otter and East Kent Goldings with the Timothy Taylor strain (Wyeast 1469). Moravian Pilsner and Saaz with Pilsner Urquell’s “H” strain (Wyeast 2001). Vienna and Styrian Goldings with the Westmalle strain (Wyeast 3787/ White Labs WLP500). The list goes on and on.
The only rule of SMaSH brewing is that you get but one type of each ingredient. This limitation introduces a few challenges that you might not encounter in conventional recipe design. Working with only one grain, for example, means sticking to malts that possess enough diastatic power to self-convert—the so-called base malts. Pale malt, Pilsner malt, Munich malt, Vienna malt, and unique British cultivars such as Maris Otter and Golden Promise will all do great. In theory, you could even use 100 percent wheat or rye malt, but you’d likely need to take a week off work to lauter the gummy mess.