I discovered something last night that blew me away. The parent strain for most modern lager yeast strains was not obtained from a Bavarian brewery. It was obtained from the Brauerei Frohberg in Grimma, Saxony (from what I understand, Saxony is famous for Schwarzbier). Now, seeing that W-34/70 is considered to be the prototypical Frohberg strain, can we assume that Weihenstephan strain number 34 is Brauerei Frohberg's strain?
Many thanks go out to the people behind Google Translate because the text from which I gleaned this information is written in German.
Original Text:
“Die Hefe Frohberg stammt aus der Brauerei Frohberg in Grimma in Sachsen und ist eine Unterhefe. Die Hefe Saaz, welche in der Betriebshefe einer Saazer Brauerei als Nebenrasse enthalten war und daraus rein gezüchtet wurde, zeigt ebenfalls alle morphologischen Merkmale (einschließlich der Sporenbildung) der Brauerei kulturhefe. Sie gibt jedoch, im Betriebe verwendet, keine normale Gärung und kann daher eigentlich nicht zu den Kulturhefen gerechnet werden.”
Translated Text:
"The yeast Frohberg comes from the brewery Frohberg in Grimma in Saxony and is a bottom yeast. The yeast Saaz, which was included in the Betriebshefe Saaz a brewery by-race and was bred pure fact also shows all the morphological features (including spores) of the brewery culture yeast. They are, however, used in companies, not a normal fermentation and therefore can not really be classed as culture yeasts. "
I understood hefe (yeast), unterhefe (bottom yeast, a.k.a. lager yeast), and brauerei. I believe that the word that Google translate did not handle, Betriebshefe, roughly means "factory yeast" or "production yeast." Are there any German speakers on the forum that can improve the translatation?