I have only used Safale-05 and Nottingham, should I switch?

I have been brewing for 8 months or so now and at one time I was brewing a batch every week or two so I probably have 20+ batches under my belt. I've had some really good batches and then I've experienced some that were not so fun to drink but I learned a lot from. All of my beers have been ales.

One thing that has always stayed consistent is the fact that I have only used Nottingham and Safale-05 yeast primarily because of it's simplicity. I just pour the cooled wort into a bucket and pitch.

What are the advantages of using other brands of liquid yeast? Anything else you all can share with me on this topic is appreciated!

Notty and Sa 05 are both good yeast strains. However there are whole lot of different strains to try, even different dry strains that put into the same wort will yield a different final product. Oftentimes though with liquid strains it advisable to make a starter. But starters are quite easy to make. a little dme some water in a sanitized mason jar with some foil. search for the mr malty pitching rate calculator which you should always use to make sure your not under pitching especially with high gravity ales. You might even want to build a do it yourself stirplate. Whatever you do good luck

Those dry yeasts are very good strains for general use; they can do pretty much any ale adequately. But the variety of strains available in liquid form will allow you to tweak and fine-tune your ales much more, bring them in line with certain styles and intentions. Nottingham and S-04 are both fairly neutral; they tend to leave the malt and hops to mostly shine through by themselves. This is good for many styles. But you can get yeast strains that give the beer all sorts of flavors and aromas. You can play around with not just different malt and hop flavors, but the fruity, woody, estery, spicy, or otherwise aromatic characteristics different yeast strains can bring to bear.

Keep using 'em until you make beers that require yeast profiles.

I've used many liquid yeasts, not like I'm scared of them or anything, but I still prefer S05 for most of my ales.

For starters, give S-04 a shot. It's very different from the 05 and Notty. Great stuff.

You could brew for years with one yeast and not run out of malt and hop combinations. The bulk of my beers use US-05 or S-04. I don't bother with liquid unless I'm doing something like a belgian or hefe that requires a unique strain.

It really depends on the styles you enjoy. If you like fairly "clean" ales with a somewhat dry finish from a yeast perspective, don't change. I only use liquid yeasts when I'm doing a style that calls for something VERY specific, such as a Belgian or a Kolsch style. I use and reuse S-05 almost solely. Though my pumpkin and several sweeter styles use S-04. I use their dry wheat (don't remember the number) for all 3 of my wheat beers and their dry lager for both of my lagers. Dry yeasts have saved me where liquid yeasts failed me prior to my doing starters and washing. You will always find a red packet of S-05 (or 12) in my fridge.

I use US-05, S-04, or Nottingham if I'm making a beer that accentuates malt and/or hops over yeast flavor. I would also never buy Wyeast 1056 or WL 001 because US-05 is a version of the same yeast (it is also cheaper and contains far more yeast cells). I also found out that Wyeast 1099 and S-04 are the same strain after buying 2 activators for my recent brew (rage).

If I were to make a Belgian, I would consider liquid yeast, however Fermentis actually has 2 styles of Belgian yeast which I'd probably try first (T-58 and T-33) unless I was going for something very specific. If I was brewing a lager I would probably go with a liquid lager yeast, bu I don't really like lagers so this isn't an issue for me.

Apart from that, if I were making a clone of a specific beer, and the actual yeast used by the brewery was available in liquid form but not in dry, I'd go with that. Here's a list:

http://www.mrmalty.com/yeast.htm

What are the advantages? There are hundreads of different yeast strains and you don't know which ones you like until you try them. I prefer Pacman over US-05 and I never would have know that if I didn't give it a try.