Sam Adams Summer YEAST

So I brewed a Sam Summer clone from North American Clone Brews earlier this year and finally cracked a bottle today. While the beer is delicious, in fact one of my better brews so far, it tastes VERY much like a Belgian white. There's a strong tart.... Belgian taste! The same flavor I got from my Belgian White... sort of residually sweet yet sour and tart at the same time. "Belgian-y".

Now it has been 7 or so months since I've had a Sam Summer, so perhaps my taste-buds have a short memory... but something seems amiss. All references to the beer I can find describe it as an American Wheat. Yet, all the clones I can find use Belgian Wit yeasts as opposed to Hefe or other yeasts. Any thoughts on this?

I really want to nail this beer! That Belgian flavor seems to overpower those delicate Grains of Paradise and Lemon Zest. Haha I figure, if I can get this recipe damn near perfect, I'll just brew 10 batches or so and have a great summer!

-Ben

well I guess it's safe to assume that no one else has had this problem before...

You can try harvesting some yeast from the bottles. Just hope that they don't filter the beer then add a different (less flocculant) strain after filtration.

Dunno, but American Wheats usually use a very neutral strain like 1056 or equivalent.

I think I may be doing something along the lines of Bell's Oberon (American Wheat) soon for summer and will probably use Safale 05 (formerly US 56).

blarg... stupid North American Clone Brews...

I'd love to try rehydrating some Sam Summer yeast, but I dont want to lose a whle batch if in fact they DO filter it out and use a seperate yeast for cloudiness and conditioning. Hmmm... maybe WL 001? That might be too fruity though. Would that even go well with a wheat?
-Ben

SkaBoneBenny said:

Hmmm... maybe WL 001? That might be too fruity though.
-Ben

Click to expand...

WLP001 would be to clean for that kind of a beer. I think you want some characteristics of the yeast, where I find that 001 is a very clean fermenting yeast... my 2 cents..

that's a really good point.. huh... what to use?! I should just ask Jim Koch....