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Author Topic: Lager yeast for ales  (Read 8387 times)

Offline dmtaylor

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Re: Lager yeast for ales
« Reply #45 on: March 15, 2020, 05:22:35 pm »
If some lager yeasts are genetically ale yeasts, might some ale yeasts be genetically lager yeasts?

WLP-051 has been classified as a lager strain.

True, WLP051 is pastorianus.  Others in the same boat: Wyeast 1187 Ringwood, WLP029 German "Ale" "Kolsch" -- are actually pastorianus.
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Offline Northern_Brewer

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Re: Lager yeast for ales
« Reply #46 on: March 16, 2020, 11:31:14 am »
True, WLP051 is pastorianus.  Others in the same boat: Wyeast 1187 Ringwood, WLP029 German "Ale" "Kolsch" -- are actually pastorianus.

I would put very little weight on 1187 being pastorianus - all the other sequencing points to Ringwoods including the Wyeast one and NCYC1187 being ale, I think the sequence you're thinking of is just a screwup with labelling in the lab - it's certainly happened with the yeast sequencing project in Strasbourg.

W-34/70 is in fact pastorianus.

The most surprising "lager" strains that were actually proven to be cerevisiae include: WLP800 (but NOT Wyeast 2001, these are NOT the same), and WLP838 (but NOT 2308, these are NOT the same).

WLP800 is well known from multiple sources as an ale yeast. The only source suggesting WLP838 is an ale is the Langdon et al paper, so for now I'd be a little cautious - it could be that that was the one that got mixed up with 1187, or it could really be an ale.

Not surprising 34/70 operates either cold or warm. It’s fairly close to 2112/810. Interestingly, A15 (supposedly an Ale yeast) is it’s closest relative in the Lager family.

A15 is short for VTT A-63015 which is from a Finnish lager brewery - you'd kinda expect it to be a close relative of 34/70. 34/70 is the best-known relative of the Frohberg family which appears to have come from Heineken, who sent massive amounts of yeast to German lager breweries in the early days, all the homebrew lagers seem to be part of that family and not the genetically different (and more cold-adapted) Saaz family (which actually was mostly propagated by Carlsberg).

Forgive me for asking, but using a lager yeast would make your beer a lager, not an ale, right?

The more we know about the genetics, the more difficult it gets to classify a beer by the yeast it uses - there's commercial "lagers" being made by all sorts of weird yeasts, even relatives of saisons. So I wouldn't get hung up on getting too precise about it, these days it's more a case of "you know it when you see it" - clean, light, usually stored ("lagered") for a period of weeks, usually noble hops or rarely the more subtle New World hops (particularly NZ).

How about this...just use Wyeast 1056. It is clean and versatile. 1056 will ferment at both cool temps and warm temps. A local brewery used it to ferment their "lager" style beers, using cool temps. The temp is from 60F to 72F. And I think it will work at even more extreme temps.

But there's better yeasts than Chico - WLP090 will drop more cleanly, 34/70 or a Californian lager will probably be cleaner.