Originally the idea was to taste the difference between Cascadeⁱ & Liberty hops by brewing two identical beers, bar the hops in question.   Having said that, I've reduced the amount of Simcoe hops from 50g to 30g as the Simcoe Cascade Bitter was rather bitter when I tasted it during bottling.   This ruins the scientific aspect of the experiment, but the object is great beer rather than a lab experiment.

Mash - 1 hr at 70°c

4.0 Kg pale malt

200g crystal malt

250g amber malt

Boil - 1 hr 10 min

30g Simcoe hops (12.9% a/a) at beginning of boil

25g Liberty hops(3.6% a/a) after 30 min

25g Liberty hops after 50 min

20g Hallertau Mittlefruh hops(4.2% a/a) after 1 hour

10g Hallertau Mittlefruh hops into fermentation vessel as wort cools

Final volume 15 litres & OG 1048.   From the handy calculator this should give me: 94 IBUⁱⁱⁱ & 5.2% alcohol roughly.

Yeast strain used: Safale us-05 dry ale yeast taken from the bottom of a bottle of American Indian Pale Ale.

Verdict on bottling: a pale brown beer with a yeasty smell as would expected at this point. A vegetal smell & taste like cooked cabbage could be from the dry hops sitting too long in the fermenting beer - it was left in the fermentation vessel for a whole week. Still, that might fade away with a few weeks clearing & maturing in the bottle. Even at this stage the difference between Simcoe Cascade & this beer is pretty big.

Verdict after almost 2 weeks in a bottle: I filled a few 1 litre bottles so it is easier to open one early to see if its ready without wasting too much beer if its not - so I opened one to see what its like; A brown colour darker than a copper bitter but lighter than a chestnut mild. It doesn't have the fresh hoppiness of the Simcoe Cascade Bitter, but it also doesn't have the huge bitterness either. A little vegetal flavour is still present, more so in the aftertaste. The clarity is reasonable considering its only been standing for a fortnight. Still, this is a decent bitter & with a little more flocculation & maturing it might yet be a very good beer.

Verdict after 6 weeks in a bottle: A very hoppy, bitter beer that is very bright. A good clean taste, with all of the vegetal taste gone. A great beer - if I say so myself - but the Cascade & Amarillo versions are a little superior in my opinion.

Verdict after 4 months in a bottle: Easily the 3rd best of the 3 Simcoe beers I brewed. The bottle I opened last night had that vegetal & slightly sulphurous taint. I drank a half pint & decanted the rest into a fresh bottle, then put in the fridge. Tonight I'm drinking the rest & its a perfectly good beer - the air seems to have knocked out all of the DMS.