Using a lager yeast for a brett beer

One of my thoughts would be to deliberately get a high diacetyl lager yeast and utilize a Brettanomyces blend of some sort to remove the diacetyl instead of a lagering phase.

I realize that this to defeats the purpose of a "lager", but it still has my curiosity peaked.

Grain bill(~5 gallon batch):
2# Belgium Pilsner (Castle)
5# Munich
2# Special B

I will be using a mix of Fuggle and Cascade hops since those are the hops that I have. I haven't thought out that end of the recipe too much, yet.

I will do the fermentation at the higher end of whatever yeast I use just to make sure I get more (but not too much more) yeast character and diacetyl from the primary fermentation phase.

For secondary, I will rack to a carboy, pitch one of the brett blends from biobrewer's store, and let it sit at room temperature.

So this leaves me with two questions:
1. What Wyeast lager strain should I use (or possibly White Labs since they do sell some on amazon)?
2. Should I sour mash?

this sounds like a cool idea.

personally, i wouldn't sour mash. that's one more flavor to get in the way of seeing what lager + brett does. maybe there is a nice subtle interaction there that would be buried under the taste of lactic acid.

along a similar note, i would invert the proportion of pils and munich - i would want to highlight the yeasts instead of the stronger malt flavors of munich... but that's just a preference of mine.

do let us know how this turns out.

That's not a bad idea (switching the pilsner and munich amounts).

Perhaps I will try a sour mashed lager on the next lager after this one.

What do you think of Bavarian Lager Yeast for this experiment? I tend to like marzens and bock varieties of lagers best, so that would be a strain that could get a lot of mileage in my homebrews. It also requires a thorough diacetyl rest according to wyeast's description, so it seems like it might be good for finding out what brett really will do with those flavors.

Or do you know another lager yeast strain that will throw off a lot of diacetyl and possibly some sulfur off flavors?

I also plan on deliberately underpitching the lager yeast mildly just to get some of those added stressed out flavors for brett to play with. I know brett converts those quick because I have a huge 12-15% (depending on attenuation speculation) projected barleywine aging with brettanomyces lambicus. I deliberately had racked that while it was throwing off some sour apple (partially fermented sugar... learned that from making mead) smells. It turned that around to a funky dark cherry within a few days.

I kicked this off this weekend. Here's the recipe that I actually settled on (mostly because I forgot to buy the Special B...)

Grain bill:
5# Belgium Pilsner
2# Munich I
Mashed at 160*F for 60min

60min boil

Hop Schedule:
2oz Fuggles 15min
1oz Cascade 5min
.7oz of Fuggles at flame out (this was how much was left of the one bag i had)
1oz Cascade at flameout

the gravity was 1.05 before the boil and i wanted it a bit bigger, so I added 1/3rd lb of Extra Light DME

OG: 1.062
IBU: ~32


I tasted a bit of the wort and it was a very pleasing taste at that point.

I pitched 2 smack packs of Wyeast Bavarian Lager when the temperature got down to 60*F. The temperature is holding at a steady between 55 and 57*F in my minifridge.

As stated before, the primary fermentation of this beer with be par for a normal lager, but a bit on the warm side to get as much diacetyl and non-fusel off flavors as I can from the yeast. Instead of a Diacetyl rest, I will let this beer get down to its final gravity, rack it to a glass carboy, and pitch a blend of Brettanomyces from Biobrewer's company.

I am up in the air for whether I want the one he said would be more fruity or more like a farmhouse. Does anyone here have a preference? I will be giving tasting notes and I could even ship bottles to a handful of people willing to provide tasting notes.

Good timing! I'm thinking of doing something similar.
I brewed a lager with yeast cultured from a bottle of Monchshof Kellerbier, but fermentation never got going so I pitched a pack of saflager W-34. The dry yeast worked well, but the bottle cultured yeast left some sketchy flavors. I'm not sure if the cause was a too-low pitch rate, autolysis flavors from dead yeast in the bottle, or if the bottle strain was really an ale and suffered at lager temperatures. At any rate, the final beer did not end up clean and lager-like.
I thought I could embrace the funk and pitch some Brett to "rescue" the beer.
I'll be following your thread.

This is something I have been thinking about trying as well. I bet that the diacetyl and other off flavors the brett will clean up will be turned into some pleasant esters that you wouldnt get with using brett in secondary with say, a clean wlp001 fermentation.

Im know that New Belgium does this, at least with felix and oscar.

I can't imagine that it will turn out bad. The big question is if the flavors produced by the brett will be different from when it's used in the secondary for an ale, but I want to try this out. It has the added benefit that I only have one modified minifridge for fermenting/lagering lagers, so this will enable me to kick off another lager in the mean time.

I racked this over Thanksgiving break and added Brett C. by White Labs since Biobrewer's website is still saying that it is sold out of everything. I got a very high amount of diacetyl in the lager when I tasted it, so we should get a good idea of at least what Brett C will do.

After a day or two, I smelled the carboy and it's already starting to smell like a saison. We'll see in 6-9 months or so when I rack this baby to a keg and give it a go. From the barley wine w/ Brett L that I had done (which had the green apple taste when racking), I know that brettanomyces does a quick job in initial clean up of off flavors, but I know it also takes a good long while to fully develop its flavor profile. Fingers are crossed!

marvaden said:

I racked this over Thanksgiving break and added Brett C. by White Labs since Biobrewer's website is still saying that it is sold out of everything. I got a very high amount of diacetyl in the lager when I tasted it, so we should get a good idea of at least what Brett C will do.

After a day or two, I smelled the carboy and it's already starting to smell like a saison. We'll see in 6-9 months or so when I rack this baby to a keg and give it a go. From the barley wine w/ Brett L that I had done (which had the green apple taste when racking), I know that brettanomyces does a quick job in initial clean up of off flavors, but I know it also takes a good long while to fully develop its flavor profile. Fingers are crossed!

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Are you pitching straight from the vial or making a step up starter and pitching a larger cell count? I know that Brett takes a long time to build up cells and it would seem to me that building up a good population would speed up the process? I've only done 100 percent Brett beers so I was just wondering. Cheers

For secondary, I always do a straight pitch. I'm not sure if a larger pitch rate would speed it up too much since this is already a 3 gallon batch and the vial is for 5 gallon batches. Maybe someone like sweetcell or levifunk would know.

My experience with secondary is almost a log(x) type function for the flavor & aroma: A lot of quick gain, then all the rounding out of the flavor goes really slow and steady.

Excited to hear how this turns out! Sounds awesome.

I bottled part of a batch of maibock with 1cc of Brett B and enough agave nectar for 1.5 volumes. That was a month and a half ago and they are carbed to about 3 volumes right now. The Brett portion tastes cleaner than the s05 and agave carbed portion.

BryanThompson,

I have heard similar results for bottling time. Brettanomyces is definitely a yeast with many facets.

I'm looking forward to updates. Great thread.

It's starting to form a pellicle, so I took a whiff of what's going on, and it's the most pleasantly funky fermenter that I have ever possessed. Even though I used Brett C, I am getting close to no tropical fruit on the nose except maybe a hint of mango. Not sweaty horseblanket, but a richer, fuller funk. I'm going to stop messing with it for a few months, but it smells absolutely wonderful. I'm really looking forward to this beer.

As for my guess as to why this is the case:
This makes sense because it's the same chemical produced by lager yeasts as pedio (diacetyl). If this works out well, it may be a "poor man's" way to get something similar to the brett/pedio interaction. Only, it won't have the added tartness of pedio.

It makes me wonder what it would be like to do Roeselare as a secondary to a lager. From this, I am guessing that it would be a slightly funkier sour, OR it may end up with residual butter taste from even the brett not being able to produce enough enzyme for those levels. I may go ahead and give that a go some time soon.

I am getting ready to keg it and try this thing now. It still smells and looks wonderful. The pellicle hasn't collapsed yet, but I am probably going to be moving soon, so I need to get it out of glass at this point.

Just kegged this one. It's still flat, so I don't have accurate tasting notes yet. However, it has a ton of funk. A bit if bitterness shone through as well. Very brett forward since I used the pilsner malts with very little of anything else.

Honestly, even flat, I feel like this would be a great base for a sour. I may eventually do a roeselare into a lager.

Now as it's getting more carbonation, I am starting to really love this beer. It has a nice silky mouth feel like a saison, a nice balance of hops, funk and tropical fruit in both aroma and flavor. I highly recommend doing this beer even though it took a long time to achieve

Enjoyed reading this thread, love the idea of using a lager yeast.

I think the key may be to find a lager yeast that really works for this. I may very well try this in the near future.

I would say that the Bavarian lager yeast worked very well with this. Next one I will do will be with a California lager yeast so that I can simultaneous pitch the brett with it and have a slightly higher fermentation temperature.

marvaden said:

I would say that the Bavarian lager yeast worked very well with this. Next one I will do will be with a California lager yeast so that I can simultaneous pitch the brett with it and have a slightly higher fermentation temperature.

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Although I've done it so many times on this forum I'm probably sounding like a broken record but; if you plan to pitch a California style lager yeast, try S-23, I've used it at warmer temps and had great results.

I will second the S-23,it is bloody great

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Does it give much diacetyl? That's one of the building blocks used by brett to make the desired flavors

Wow this sounds very interesting. I'd be happy to take a bottle or 2 off your hands and give some feedback if the offer still stands. Otherwise I'll be trying this once I get my lagering fridge up and running.

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marvaden said:

Does it give much diacetyl? That's one of the building blocks used by brett to make the desired flavors

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At higher temps I would probably say not so much. Of coarse in my uses I've NOT wanted the diacetyl.

marvaden said:

Does it give much diacetyl? That's one of the building blocks used by brett to make the desired flavors

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I've heard people say that Brett "benefits" from diacetyl, but I've never heard a convincing statement of what it adds or what it is transformed into.

Oldsock, I agree. I only use it as a measure that there are a lot of chemicals still in solution that need to be cleaned up. My guess is that the way brett cleans up the chemicals would provide different final chemicals, but it's a guess.

I would love to see someone with a bio chemistry background conduct a study on what all is really happening between brett and the various chemical byproducts.

By the way, I love your blog.

Now that it's aged a bit more, it tastes very fruity. It's still easy drinking and the head basically never goes away.

I attended a New Belgium 'Sour Symposium' last week. The blender of their sour beers (I forget her name) confirmed that they use a dark and light lager as the base of La Folie, blending them to taste year by year, along with varying portions from different foeders. She said she felt like using a lager allows them to shortcut the souring process a bit as the Brett/bugs do not need to go through an extra step of converting the esters you would get from a regular ale yeast ferment. Thanks for keeping us updated on this beer.

My experiment did not work out. The off flavor was most likely from an infected starter (bottle culture attempt), and the brett did not resolve this.