Imperial Yeast A30 Corporate

[aprichman]

I picked up an extremely fresh pack of Imperial Yeast A30 Corporate from my LHBS for an IPA I'm making this weekend. I hadn't heard anything about it and couldn't find any information on Imperial's website.

I did a little bit of digging and found this interesting quote about this strain on page 38 of Dick Cantwell's Brewing Eclectic IPAs, "...this is the yeast I used while working for one of my former breweries which has transmogrified into something, well, more corporate than before."

After looking into Dick Cantwell's past I found he was one of the co-owners of Elysian which as we all know was bought by AB a few years back.

So we have a confirmed origin for this strain! Just thought I would put it out there for anyone who is interested.

 

[aprichman]

I reached out to Imperial Yeast and here's what they say -

It's a super great strain for hop forward beers. Here is our description:
Corporate is a Pacific Northwest favorite and is an excellent choice when making hop forward American style beers. It’s the go to for Brut IPAs, due to its clean fermentation profile and accentuation of hop flavor and aroma. Middle of the road flocculation and fairly wide fermentation profile make this an easy strain to work with. Temp: 60-73F (16-23C) // Flocculation: Medium // Attenuation: 73-77%

 

[Northern_Brewer]

"...this is the yeast I used while working for one of my former breweries which has transmogrified into something, well, more corporate than before."

After looking into Dick Cantwell's past I found he was one of the co-owners of Elysian which as we all know was bought by AB a few years back.

So we have a confirmed origin for this strain!

It being used at a brewery is not the same as it originating there.

Looking at the specs - decent attenuation & flocculation, wide temperature range - A30 looks rather similar to Wyeast 1217, which may be the Stone yeast. Stone got their yeast from Pyramid, who are a decade older than Elysian and like them were headquartered in Seattle (for a while).

So Elysian certainly had the opportunity to get their yeast from Pyramid.

 

[aprichman]

Seems like a lot of extrapolation on your end. Just because the specs are similar (but not the same) as WY1217 doesn't mean they're the same yeast. Also we're not sure if that's even the yeast Stone uses.

I can say for sure that this is Elysian's yeast. Can you provide any sources that link Elysian to Pyramid or Stone? If not it seems like you're just throwing out some wild theories.

 

[HomemadeSauce]

I think NB is just trying to clarify that Elysian may not actually be the original user of the yeast strain although it was their "house" strain. I'm under the impression that Cloudburst in Seattle uses this one as well (Steve Luke was at Elysian for a long time). We were supposed to get some in as samples last week but they never arrived. I'll be curious to see reviews on it -- Juice has been one of our more popular yeasts lately.

 

[aprichman]

A lot of breweries are using this strain now - it's been available from Imperial for awhile but they just recently made it available to home brewers.

I know Cloudburst and Magnolia both use it in some of their beers.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Seems like a lot of extrapolation on your end. Just because the specs are similar (but not the same) as WY1217 doesn't mean they're the same yeast. Also we're not sure if that's even the yeast Stone uses.

I can say for sure that this is Elysian's yeast. Can you provide any sources that link Elysian to Pyramid or Stone? If not it seems like you're just throwing out some wild theories.

You can say for sure that Elysian use a closely related version of the Imperial yeast, but unless both Imperial and Elysian are drawing off the same vials for their production it won't be identical, there will be subtle differences. But my real point is that this yeast did not spring into existence at Elysian in 1995, it will have come from somewhere else.

It sounds like it's pretty clean, so it's unlikely to be a typically British strain, so that "somewhere else" is unlikely to be eg Redhook or Hales. But there won't have been too many sources of yeast for a new brewery in 1995, so it's just a question of looking for possibilities. Odds are that if it's clean and on the West Coast, it's a derivative of either Chico or BRY-97.

Sure, my previous post was pure speculation - but at least it generates a hypothesis that can be tested by anyone with access to Corporate, the Stone yeast and a PCR machine.

 

[aprichman]

Dick Cantwell literally says Corporate is the yeast they used at Elysian. Imperial Yeast offers the Chico strain under A07 Flagship so I doubt it's that. He still uses Corporate at Magnolia Brewing so I'm going to defer to the person who founded Elysian and continues to work with Imperial Yeast.

 

[Upthewazzu]

Maybe it's the same or very similar to Wyeast 1332 NW Ale. It's the Hales Ale (another Seattle brewery) yeast (via Gales in the UK). I've used it a couple times in a hoppy pale ale and it's great.

If anyone uses A30 and experiences a massive, almost never-ending, krausen then I think we can definitively say its the same strain as 1332.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Dick Cantwell literally says Corporate is the yeast they used at Elysian.

People say that kind of thing all the time, but it's only true if the provenance is exactly the same. Just one generation out here or there and you've got a yeast that is very similar, but not identical.

Imperial Yeast offers the Chico strain under A07 Flagship so I doubt it's that.

It's normal for yeast companies to offer brewery-specific derivatives of Chico, typically with better flocculation - Pacman and San Diego Super are examples. So I wouldn't rule out that Corporate is a Chico derivative, just because A07 exists.

@Upthewazzu - the fact that the description talks about "clean fermentation profile and accentuation of hop flavor and aroma. Middle of the road flocculation and fairly wide fermentation profile" doesn't sound like 1332, clean and moderate floccing sounds far more like a Chico derivative to me.

 

[couchsending]

1217 is known to accentuate bitterness and Stone ferments it at 72* although in their massive fermenters that is rather different than what we would want to use it in a 5g scale.

Corporate is definitely the yeast Elysian was using. Wouldn’t surprise me if it was similar to Chico. 001 and 1056 are different... who really cares though. Even if they are similar genetically they might produce very different beers.

It’s definitkey not 1332. The brewing specs for 1332 and Corporate are very different. To me 1332 produces this odd fruity character I can’t describe, even when fermented within it’s very small temp band. The fruity character might have to do with pitch rate or O2 requirements??

 

[hopjuice_71]

People say that kind of thing all the time, but it's only true if the provenance is exactly the same. Just one generation out here or there and you've got a yeast that is very similar, but not identical.

Northern_Brewer, I'm actually pretty curious about this and you seem like you may have insight into the answer. How rapid is the mutation rate in the genomes of brewers yeast whereby we may see enough resulting phenotypical change to the strain to call it "different" (all other parameters being equal). Or might the changes we see over what would typically be considered pretty short generational timescales be attributed to epigenetic changes? Anybody looked at this?

Cheers

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Northern_Brewer, I'm actually pretty curious about this and you seem like you may have insight into the answer. How rapid is the mutation rate in the genomes of brewers yeast whereby we may see enough resulting phenotypical change to the strain to call it "different" (all other parameters being equal). Or might the changes we see over what would typically be considered pretty short generational timescales be attributed to epigenetic changes? Anybody looked at this?

It's an interesting and really complicated question. It's clear that beer is a much more stressful environment than life in the lab, and some estimates put the mutation rate in beer at 50x the lab rate. In particular it seems the yeast DNA is weakened and becomes particularly prone to rearrangement/deletion/multiplication of small "chunks" rather than the point mutations that people think of as typical. Gallone et al put the divergence rate between US and UK brewing yeasts as 1.61–1.73E-08/bp/generation - this in a genome of ~12 million base pairs (bp). Personally I think their rates are a little bit high, but not by much.

You then have to consider what your effective population size is - unless you're going to single colonies every generation (which never happens in a brewing context, but is likely in a yeast lab) you're going to have b/millions of yeast all mutating away. It's that population size which is a bit of a killer.

And yes, there's a bunch of epigenetics happening on top of that, associated with the different culture media of lab versus brewery etc.

 

[aprichman]

So about a week in after I pitched, fermentation kicked off in about 16 hours after I pitched. The beer was held at ~67°F for 4 days during active fermentation before being bumped up to 68°F for a few days and I'm going to finish it out at 70°F. At ~48 hours after pitching the yeast it needed to blow off. There was ~1.5 gallons of headspace in my carboy, lots of yeast in the krausen made this one a crawler.

After a week there's still a layer of yeast floating on top. The smell of the ferment was surpisingly pleasant with aromas of bread dough and fruit. The yeast's behavior reminds me more of US05 compared to WLP001 or WY1056. It wouldn't surprise me if this was a version of Chico that adapted to Elysian's brewhouse and started to display some different characteristics.

I'm using this for an American IPA, I'll update the thread with my impressions of the yeast after the beer is on tap in a couple of weeks.

 

[Tbagger]

I just picked up a pack of A30 Corporate from my LHBS yesterday for a mosaic IPA I'm brewing on Wednesday. I'm pretty excited to try it out.

 

[couchsending]

So about a week in after I pitched, fermentation kicked off in about 16 hours after I pitched. The beer was held at ~67°F for 4 days during active fermentation before being bumped up to 68°F for a few days and I'm going to finish it out at 70°F. At ~48 hours after pitching the yeast it needed to blow off. There was ~1.5 gallons of headspace in my carboy, lots of yeast in the krausen made this one a crawler.

After a week there's still a layer of yeast floating on top. The smell of the ferment was surpisingly pleasant with aromas of bread dough and fruit. The yeast's behavior reminds me more of US05 compared to WLP001 or WY1056. It wouldn't surprise me if this was a version of Chico that adapted to Elysian's brewhouse and started to display some different characteristics.

I'm using this for an American IPA, I'll update the thread with my impressions of the yeast after the beer is on tap in a couple of weeks.

Requiring a blowoff and makes this yeast sound way different than Chico that’s for sure. Isn’t Chico technically a bottom fermenting strain?

 

[Upthewazzu]

Requiring a blowoff and makes this yeast sound way different than Chico that’s for sure. Isn’t Chico technically a bottom fermenting strain?

I've had a couple of 1056 blow-offs over the years. Not many, but a few.

 

[aprichman]

I don't usually have blowoffs with 1056 or 001 but US05 always seems to climb on me and need a blowoff.

 

[aprichman]

The IPA I made using A30 got kegged last night and burst carbonated at 30psi @ 34°F (the same temperature I crashed this at so it was already around this.) The hydrometer sample showed this yeast fermented to 84% AA. Even after a 24 hour cold crash and a day in the keg there's a good deal of haze in the beer. This one was also dryhopped with 3 oz. (I do 5 gallon batches) so nothing crazy but I think this one is going to remain hazy for the duration it's on tap.

So far I'm really impressed with this yeast, I agree with the description that this drives hop aroma and flavor. I think it's a little more estery than WLP001 or WY1056. I find US05 to be a bit more estery than either of these strains, but whereas US05 has flavors and aromas I perceive as being peach-like A30 invokes ripe tangerine on my pallet. It compliments the Amarillo and Simcoe hops beautifully and really helps drives the "juicy" flavors and aromas. The beer is also surprisingly thick feeling for the AA. US05 always seems to come across a bit thin to me.

I fermented this on the warmer side starting at 67°F then bumping up to 72°F when the krausen dropped after 4-5 days. I'm curious to see how it would have turned out closer to the bottom end of it's temperature range. My guess is a little cleaner with less character.

If this strain is a mutated Chico it's by far the most fun version I've worked with. My only complaint is that it was a really poor floculater. I had a pretty decent raft of yeast across the entire top of the beer at day 11 when I started the cold crash. I have to admit I love working with beer that floc hard and are super bright in the fermenter.

I still haven't tried their Juice or Dryhop strain but I'm really impressed with Corporate and Imperial in general. I had a bad experience when the yeast came in cans but the new pouches have been great.

If you guys make anything with this strain make sure to update this thread. I'd be interested to hear your results.

 

[couchsending]

So I’ve done a little more research on this yeast. In an article in Craft Beer and Brewing, Steve Luke from Cloudburst is quoted as saying A30 is bry96 from Siebel. Everything I’ve read says bry96 is Chico, 1056, US05, 001. Now we know all those yeasts are supposedly slightly different for one reason or another. For instance BSI sells three different cultures, one that references Bry96, one that references 1056, and one that references 001.

Imperial lists A30 as being more flocculent than A07 but all other aspects are the same, temp and attenuation.

A30 could just be “Chico” that adapted or mutated at Elysian??

 

[couchsending]

After some more research I found another interesting tidbit...

bry96/001/1056 is a diploid yeast, most brewing strains are polyploids. Diploids are less stable genetically and are more prone to genetic mutations. Soooo it would be easier to get a mutation of this strain after serial repitching at a brewery. Elysian might have found they liked the performance of this yeast after a certain generation and had that mutation banked... I guess diploids are more common in bread and wine yeasts but rare in brewing yeasts.

 

[kcinpdx]

I would bet my brewery that it’s not 1332. Imperial has a strain called Totem that is the equivalent of NW strain. It’s just not readily available to the public. I had several brut IPAs this past week at homebrewcon at the imperial yeast booth. It’s not 1056 or the equivalents. The most likely source is the Elysian brewery strain.

 

[aprichman]

Very happy with how this brew turned out

 

[Biggles]

I'm surrently crashing a brut IPA with this yeast. The krausen never went away after fermentation. I gave the carboy some agitation to try and settle it down and incorporate the dry hop charge, but after a couple of weeks and a cold crash, it's not clearing up at all. I'm unsure why a medium flocculating yeast is being touted as a go-to for Brut IPA style, which should be crystal clear.
I will say that if the smell is anything to go by, then this beer will taste incredible, so fruity! Fermented down to 0.999 too!

 

[aprichman]

After a month in the keg my beer is mostly cleared. Probably down to the last 2-3 pints before the keg kicks. Still tastes great, the flavor has mellowed a bit and reminds me of ripe ruby red grapefruits.

 

[Upthewazzu]

I'm surrently crashing a brut IPA with this yeast. The krausen never went away after fermentation. I gave the carboy some agitation to try and settle it down and incorporate the dry hop charge, but after a couple of weeks and a cold crash, it's not clearing up at all. I'm unsure why a medium flocculating yeast is being touted as a go-to for Brut IPA style, which should be crystal clear.
I will say that if the smell is anything to go by, then this beer will taste incredible, so fruity! Fermented down to 0.999 too!

How in the world did you get it to ferment that dry? Did you mash at 145 for three hours or something?

 

[aprichman]

Brut IPAs usually have enzymes added to make almost all sugars in the wort fermentable.

 

[couchsending]

I had the oddest thing happen with this yeast... brewed what I plan on being a more traditional IIPA with it. Everything was cruising right along, down to 1.030 in 3 days or so, seemed slow and steady, no blow off. I pulled a few quarts off to krausen another beer then the next day when gravity was probably below 1.020 I get a huge blow off and krausen everywhere? So random. Tastes totally fine, very clean, etc

Never had a yeast do this before. Last time I used it I was away for a week while it fermented. I definitely had some serious yeast in the blow off but no idea when it happened.

 

[aprichman]

I had the oddest thing happen with this yeast... brewed what I plan on being a more traditional IIPA with it. Everything was cruising right along, down to 1.030 in 3 days or so, seemed slow and steady, no blow off. I pulled a few quarts off to krausen another beer then the next day when gravity was probably below 1.020 I get a huge blow off and krausen everywhere? So random. Tastes totally fine, very clean, etc

Never had a yeast do this before. Last time I used it I was away for a week while it fermented. I definitely had some serious yeast in the blow off but no idea when it happened.

What temperature did you ferment at?

 

[couchsending]

66 until about 50% attenuation then let it rise to 68 then I think I bumped it to 70 as it was slowing down considerably. Maybe the bump to 70
Is what did it? I do this regularly to 1272, 1056, 1318, etc and never experience anything like this.

 

[Hayden123982]

Genus brewing posted a YouTube video on Corporate a few weeks ago and did a side by side with Flagship too. Definitely worth checking out. I have a pack in the fridge I’ll be doing a Brut IPA with

 

[HomemadeSauce]

Brewed a SMaSh with Amarillo and Skagit Valley's Talisman Pale (somewhat similar to Maris Otter). Really simple brew: 1.050, 40 IBU with about half of the hops added at whirlpool, fermenting at 68*F. I have been slightly shocked at how, a week in, the krausen has hardly dropped at all. My plan is to ferment a milk stout of some sort on the yeast cake whenever the current batch finishes up.

 

[couchsending]

I sent an email to a brewery that I know uses it as their house yeast to see if they have any tips/tricks. Not sure if I’ll get a response but I’ll post something here if I do.

 

[couchsending]

Wow got a super fast response from the brewery I emailed. Here’s their advice on how to best use A30.

—————————

Tank Time 13 days no DH, 20 days DH

Ferment at 67-68
bump it to 70 after 5 days
VDK rest 60-72 hrs after terminal before crashing or dry-hopping.

Warmer it ferments the more red fruit you get.

 

[Upthewazzu]

Wow got a super fast response from the brewery I emailed. Here’s their advice on how to best use A30.

—————————

Tank Time 13 days no DH, 20 days DH

Ferment at 67-68
bump it to 70 after 5 days
VDK rest 60-72 hrs after terminal before crashing or dry-hopping.

Warmer it ferments the more red fruit you get.

Mind sharing the name of the brewery?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Looking at the specs - decent attenuation & flocculation, wide temperature range - A30 looks rather similar to Wyeast 1217, which may be the Stone yeast. Stone got their yeast from Pyramid, who are a decade older than Elysian and like them were headquartered in Seattle (for a while).

So Elysian certainly had the opportunity to get their yeast from Pyramid.

FWIW, 1271 is a Q1 seasonal release, if anyone with A30 wants to compare the two....

 

[couchsending]

I would say they’re rather different yeasts having used both.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

You can say for sure that Elysian use a closely related version of the Imperial yeast, but unless both Imperial and Elysian are drawing off the same vials for their production it won't be identical, there will be subtle differences. But my real point is that this yeast did not spring into existence at Elysian in 1995, it will have come from somewhere else....

Sure, my previous post was pure speculation - but at least it generates a hypothesis that can be tested by anyone with access to Corporate, the Stone yeast and a PCR machine.

And we now have the answer, courtesy of a new preprint from the Dunham lab in Seattle (as discussed here) - Elysian use BRY-96, the putative ancestor of the Chico family, and A30 Corporate is the closest homebrew relative (but not identical, and you could count the mutations in publicly available databases if you could be bothered).

 

[couchsending]

Weird. It shows absolutely zero resemblance to Chico. Not in fermentation, flavor, flocculation .

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Well flocculation is one of those things that's so malleable and heavily-selected-for that I wouldn't pay much attention to it.

And define what you mean by "Chico" - as that paper shows even the Chico family has some major variation within it. And just changing a single DNA "letter" in the 1056/US-05 subgroup, knocks out an enzyme involved in leucine/valine metabolism which has far-reaching effects on the yeast's biochemistry, that leads to it producing more banana ester and fusels among other things. And the BRY-96 group has an extra copy of chromosome V, whilst the WLP001 group has a recombination at the end of chromosome VIII.