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Author Topic: Y-7408 (a.k.a. Ballantine's Ale Pitching yeast)  (Read 2596 times)

Offline erockrph

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Re: Y-7408 (a.k.a. Ballantine's Ale Pitching yeast)
« Reply #15 on: May 13, 2021, 10:25:52 am »
Very interesting thanks. So Bry-96 is the forefather of American strains and probably originates from Europe, with Germany seeming most likely? Makes some sense.
I wouldn't say that Germany is necessarily "most likely" but it's certainly a good guess. Narragansett was a lager brewery but acquired Hanley's brands in the late 1950s. James Hanley was the godfather of RI Brewing. He was an Irish immigrant who got his start as a distributor of Burton Ales before opening several of the largest breweries in RI around the turn of the century. Their Ales are their best known beers.  The James Hanley brewery was the only RI brewery to survive prohibition intact.

So there are cases to be made that BRY-96 could be of German origin (via Carl Haffenreffer at Gansett), or either Irish or Burton if it came via Hanley.

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Offline clibit

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Re: Y-7408 (a.k.a. Ballantine's Ale Pitching yeast)
« Reply #16 on: May 13, 2021, 01:55:17 pm »
Very interesting thanks. So Bry-96 is the forefather of American strains and probably originates from Europe, with Germany seeming most likely? Makes some sense.
I wouldn't say that Germany is necessarily "most likely" but it's certainly a good guess. Narragansett was a lager brewery but acquired Hanley's brands in the late 1950s. James Hanley was the godfather of RI Brewing. He was an Irish immigrant who got his start as a distributor of Burton Ales before opening several of the largest breweries in RI around the turn of the century. Their Ales are their best known beers.  The James Hanley brewery was the only RI brewery to survive prohibition intact.

So there are cases to be made that BRY-96 could be of German origin (via Carl Haffenreffer at Gansett), or either Irish or Burton if it came via Hanley.

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Ah I see - thanks. Has any DNA work revealed anything?

Offline Saccharomyces

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Re: Y-7408 (a.k.a. Ballantine's Ale Pitching yeast)
« Reply #17 on: May 13, 2021, 02:24:42 pm »
So there are cases to be made that BRY-96 could be of German origin (via Carl Haffenreffer at Gansett), or either Irish or Burton if it came via Hanley.

We discussed the Hanley connection when I first breached the subject of BRY-96 being a Narragansett culture and not Ballantine's ale culture (I even purchased a Hanley wall clock for my brewery).  I made the mistake that most people make when they think of Narragansett.   We all assumed that BRY-96 originally came from Ballantine when production was moved from the Ballantine complex in Newark, New Jersey because Narragansett was a lager brewer.   However, a search of Narragansett breweriana revealed that Narragansett historically brewed ale and lager.  Here's a link to a Pre-Prohobition bottle in which Narragansett Half Stock Banquet ale was sold: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/pre-pro-1918-narragansett-beer-half-420676231  Narragansett brewed ale after Prohibition as well. BRY-96 is a unique enough that it and its descents group together by themselves, which could mean that the yeast culture may have been selected under pressure on the East Coast over a long period of time, making it a truly American culture in much the same way that Cluster is truly an American hop cultivar.   What we do know is that ale brewing on the East Coast was profitable up though the 1950s.  Ballantine reached its peak in the fifties.  After which, it started to lose market share to lager brewers.  Hanley was apparently profitable up to the mid-fifties.   We lost the one guy a couple of years ago who could give us more clues as to the origin of BRY-96; namely, Bill Anderson. Bill was the brewmaster at Narragansett when BRY-96 was deposited into the Siebel Culture Collection.

Offline fredthecat

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Re: Y-7408 (a.k.a. Ballantine's Ale Pitching yeast)
« Reply #18 on: May 13, 2021, 03:07:51 pm »
Very interesting thanks. So Bry-96 is the forefather of American strains and probably originates from Europe, with Germany seeming most likely? Makes some sense.
I wouldn't say that Germany is necessarily "most likely" but it's certainly a good guess. Narragansett was a lager brewery but acquired Hanley's brands in the late 1950s. James Hanley was the godfather of RI Brewing. He was an Irish immigrant who got his start as a distributor of Burton Ales before opening several of the largest breweries in RI around the turn of the century. Their Ales are their best known beers.  The James Hanley brewery was the only RI brewery to survive prohibition intact.

So there are cases to be made that BRY-96 could be of German origin (via Carl Haffenreffer at Gansett), or either Irish or Burton if it came via Hanley.


I'd love to know about potential irish yeasts. i did hear a bit about irish beer production from the 1700s to present, but not the always mysterious yeast.

so obviously the "irish ale" yeast WLP004/etc is guinness, but am not sure if (though assume) it's origin is english. as guinness was set up to be a profitable company, rather than a preservation of a beer tradition.

murphy's, beamish yeast sources?