Laughing Hyena Amber Ale

After the success we enjoyed with our summer pale ale, Smiling Sky, we felt confident going into this batch. We wanted another keeper, this time a rich, interesting amber ale we deemed Laughing Hyena. The grist included some cool specialty malts, like "Special B" and some neat German strains. In the boil we included the outer peel of a California navel orange to hopefully add even more dimension.

A bit paler and thinner than we had hoped, Laughing Hyena was decent but not what we were looking for. The orange dominated the profile, and we wondered if missing our mash temperature hurt the body and killed some of the malt characteristics.