From the lab - family tree of White Labs yeast

[ba-brewer]

@suregork

Are there strains in the vault that you(or colleagues) would like get your hands on for testing? Is there a way people can make donation to help with your research? I would be willing to make an donation or procure the yeast and send them.

 

[David17]

This article is about the realisation a few years ago that "Brett" Trois wasn't actually Brett. I've not seen anything about how it fits into the main Saccharomyces family tree though. But it ends with a little teaser from Troels Prahl of White Labs Copenhagen :
"We’re coming out with a pretty interesting paper here about hybrids," Prahl says. "One of the things that was remarkable when we got all that data about the sequencing was how many strains around the world are actually hybrids—which means that there are going to be several new reclassifications."

Heard anything on the grapevine @suregork?

When this occurred, I was secondary fermenting a saison with Brett Trois. It was a surprise that a lab with WLP's history failed to know they had it wrong since they do the science on which we all depend. Of course, I use their products. I may yet have BT in my freezer .

Keep brewing - it's quite an adventure.
Keep drinking - and that's quite an adventure.
Live your live freely - the ultimate adventure.
Finally, Praise God for all you have.
David

 

[kmarkstevens]

I ordered WLP 11, 17, 26 and 85 from the upcoming Vault release to compliment the yeast library sitting in my fridge.

011 European Ale because it and 02 are the lowest attenuating yeasts out there and work well with low ABV beers
017 Whitbread II because it is at least half of the Whitbread strain
026 Premium Bittler because it is estery
085 English Ale yeast blend because I really like this one. More to it and a bit less attenuative than 02. It's a mix of 02 and 07 (?). Flocculates on a dime and gives you change. I picked it up at White Labs San Diego when I had about 15 minutes to do a flight of swifties and head over to see some relatives. It's been at about 2 orders for the past 18 months, so I want to have a back up since I'm on gen 4 or 5 at this point

 

[kmarkstevens]

Got an email from White Labs saying that today is the last day to get your vault order in.

they also added this teaser: After the strains are in production (and on their way to your doorstep) we're making updates to the Vault for Homebrewers. Look for easier ordering and more unique yeast strains to be released. Stay tuned for our announcement for more details!

 

[deadwolfbones]

I got:

WLP611 New Nordic Yeast Blend
WLP518 Opshaug Farmhouse Yeast
WLP665 Flemish Ale Yeast Blend

Excited!

Also my Leeuwenhoek Saison Blend came today.

 

[ba-brewer]

this quote was posted in the whitelabs vault thread, but the question may help other more in this thread
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/white-labs-yeast-vault.565113/page-9#post-8625513

You are really close to your mother on your family tree, but hopefully you are fairly different! So proximity doesn't always mean close similarity, particularly for single/few gene characteristics like phenol production or floccing, whereas they can be quite similar for multigene characteristics (like general esteriness or human height).

And actually the family tree in that area is not that close - there's few strains sampled, which means they are "close" as you go sideways around the circle but what matters is the "height" of the lines, and you'll see that there's quite "mountain" between 025 and 009, on that measure they're further apart than eg Nottingham/039 and the Whitbreads.

With respect to your comments been wonder what the average homebrewer can glean from the family tree if two strains can be closely related yet can product quite different results?

I have been looking at the chart and viewing the dots as all one point like a electrical diagram, but I am now thinking that might be the case. In the picture below is the highest dot a yeast that create WLP025 and WLP008 or is there another intermediate yeast(next dot down) between them?

Also could you provide a key to how to read the chart?

 

[dmtaylor]

is the highest dot a yeast that create WLP025 and WLP008 or is there another intermediate yeast(next dot down) between them?

The way I read this is a combination of the dots and the lines. After a dot, the longer the line is, the longer it took for the next two offshoots to develop. So, after that highest dot, there is some distance before the next offshoots, and it happens quicker on the left branch than the right branch, which means the left branch has fewer ancestors in between the original and the new branch than the one on the right. Then from there...

WLP025 for example took many many generations before it developed, given the very long line on that one.

Conversely, once that central branch developed, WLP009, beer095, beer097, and beer096 all happened very quickly with just a few ancestors in between each one so they are all very closely related. Not sisters but reasonably close to each other.

And then on beer042 and CSB1248, while they shared a common ancestor, by their long lines it looks like the ancestor they shared was sort of like a great-great-great-great-great-...-great-grandmother. Way way back... a century or two ago. So they are actually quite distant relations. But still family in the same way that a 7th cousin is related to you --- not very closely related actually!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

With respect to your comments been wonder what the average homebrewer can glean from the family tree if two strains can be closely related yet can product quite different results?

There is information to be had, but it's fuzzy and a bit complex, just in the same way that relationships within human families can be complex. I'm sure we can all think of families where the children come out almost identical, and others where they are very, very different.

Things like POF phenolics make a big difference, but are controlled by fairly simple switches. So Windsor and S-33 are pretty closely related and behave pretty similarly, but adding the POF "gene" takes you to T-58 which aside from the peppery phenolics actually behaves pretty similarly to S-33. But all people will tend to notice is the phenol character. But for instance all the Group 2 yeasts have a certain distinct character, and it's certainly helpful to understand that eg WB-06 is a Group 2 and nothing to do with the main hefe strains, which are effectively a subgroup of kolsch yeasts that have acquired a little fragment of Group 2 DNA.

I have been looking at the chart and viewing the dots as all one point like a electrical diagram, but I am now thinking that might be the case. In the picture below is the highest dot a yeast that create WLP025 and WLP008 or is there another intermediate yeast(next dot down) between them?

It's an attempt to guess an actual family tree, so the "junctions" represent the last common ancestor of a pair of strains. The junctions with a dot are ones with >95% probability of being right, emphasising that it's a guess. The key to realise is that the height of the lines represents genetic distance, which as a first approximation very crudely corresponds to time between two yeasts splitting off from a common ancestor until their evolution was "stopped" by being banked in a freezer (typically 20-30 years ago). The correlation between genetic distance and actual time is frustratingly imprecise and will be different for different strains as eg they will mutate faster in the stressful environment of a high-ABV Trappist beer, and will mutate slower if they're only being used to ferment once a year like wine yeast and saisons. Sure enough, there's a lot less variation between wine yeasts - the critical factor is the "height" of the lines, sideways distance is purely cosmetic depending on how many strains have been sequenced in a particular group. But the Leuven lab claim that Group 1 and 2 split off about 400 years ago so that gives you a rough idea of the timescales involved, although I suspect it's a bit older than that.

Apologies to all the biologists here, the above is just trying to give a flavour of what's involved without writing an essay!

 

[ba-brewer]

Thanks for the explainations @Northern_Brewer and @dmtaylor.

 

[kmarkstevens]

I got:

WLP611 New Nordic Yeast Blend
WLP518 Opshaug Farmhouse Yeast
WLP665 Flemish Ale Yeast Blend

Excited!

Also my Leeuwenhoek Saison Blend came today.

Got an update today the Opshaug is released from the vault. My past experience means it's about 3 weeks from my door.

I previously got the 611 New Nordic Yeast Blend. did do much for me on the cyser front, so hope you have a better exerperience

 

[Northern_Brewer]

There's a new preprint out from the Dunham lab in Seattle that is mostly looking at what happens to yeast genomes as they are repitched, but they also sequenced all the Chicos they could find to get an idea of the background diversity.

The sequences were filtered against Gallone BE051 (almost certainly WLP008 East Coast) as the most divergent US strain they had.

You can see two main groups in the bottom of the chart (Fig 2 in the paper, which I've annotated in green), one based around Wyeast 1056 that includes US-05 and Imperial A07 Flagship (and "Imperial M44" - they're double checking that, it may be Mangrove Jack M44??), and one group based around White Labs WLP001 that includes the Chicos from Gigayeast, Escarpment, Craft Cultures, Omega and the old Wyeast VSS strain 1792 (Fat Tire).

If I read it right, I think they're saying that a hypothetical ancestor (at Sierra Nevada ?) of the 1056 and WLP001 groups had a A234D mutation in BAT1, a branched-chain amino acid(BCAA) aminotransferase, but the WLP001 group has a recombination on one end of chromosome VIII that restores the wild type. This seems to be a weak point in the chromosome, as the recombination seems to happen a fair bit independently. They're submitting another paper just on the BAT1 story, but "the mutation led to a number of phenotypes including a sensitivity to osmotic stress, reduced fermentation ability when grown in 20% glucose [~1.075], and a growth defect in minimal media" Per Table 3 the mutants also produce more isoamylacetate ("banana") and fusel alcohols. However the strains with the chromosome recombination don't ferment out quite as fully, and also show more diacetyl.

Both the WLP001 and 1056 groups mostly have just three copies of chromosome V, but their putative ancestor BRY-96 has four copies (green and blue squares respectively in diagram). Again this seems to be something that is rather fluid, but they observed four copies arising in a population of 1056 and spreading as it was repitched in a brewery. It could be something that gives a selective advantage in some environments but not others, or it could be just a random thing that happened at a bottleneck on the way to 1056 and WLP001.

I read "The strain BRY-96, which is used in Elysian Brewing Co." as meaning that Elysian buy in BRY-96 direct from Siebel/Lallemand, their version is certainly very close to a version sourced from Lallemand. The tree fits previous suggestions that A30 Corporate is derived from Elysian one way or another and it's the closest strain to BRY-96 that's commercially available, but the strain sourced from Elysian is closer to BRY-96 than it is to A30. Also it looks like Bell's yeast is a BRY-96 that's spent some time evolving away from Siebel.

It's interesting the way that the "San Diego/Pacman" group are distinct from the main BRY-96 family - and how did BE082 get to Belgium? @suregork and friends were already pretty certain that BE071 was WLP090 and this rather confirms it (also BE098 as 1056, and this tree rather suggests BE102 was US-05)

However, one surprise is that they reckon that NRRL Y-7408, isolated from Ballantine in 1972, is probably a cousin rather than an ancestor of the BRY-96 group, based on "large segments of variation" that it has lost compared to the BRY-96 group. Presumably BE065 has also lost them.

BE065/68/69 were the main uncertainties in the main run of White Labs yeasts in the original Gallone paper. Two obvious candidates are
WLP019 California IV and WLP076 Old Sonoma (New Albion) but we can't be sure - BE044-086 were pretty much all the White Lab strains in numerical order, but they may have eg had some strains from commercial customers of theirs in there somehow. Is SNPA BE007 or BE068?

There's also a ton of detail on how yeast genomes change over time, but that's another story....

 

[kmarkstevens]

Interesting. I'm going to have to read that when I have more time.

FYI PostDoc Brewing is just around the corner from my LHBS, which is next to Mac n Jacks brewery. The Post Doc dude is a University of Washington graduate, which is where Maitreya Dunham does her research. She had a previous project with pichia apotheca, and very nicely sent a sample on request.

 

[Wolfbrau]

The big confounding factor, insofar as tracing a lineage is concerned, seems to be that essentially all breweries used multistrains up until shockingly recently, while yeast banks have been using single strains for virtually the entirety of their existence.

 

[VikeMan]

Interesting. I currently have a Fat Tire clone fermenting with US-05, mainly because the lastest @suregork tree shows US-05 to be close to the not available Wyeast 1792 (the purported New Belgium house strain). The Suregork tree also shows US-05 and Wyeast 1792 to be closer to each other than either is to WLP001.

But the Dunham Lab tree above puts WLP001 very close to Wyeast 1792, with US-05 off in the relative hinterlands.

 

[suregork]

Interesting. I currently have a Fat Tire clone fermenting with US-05, mainly because the lastest @suregork tree shows US-05 to be close to the not available Wyeast 1792 (the purported New Belgium house strain). The Suregork tree also shows US-05 and Wyeast 1792 to be closer to each other than either is to WLP001.

But the Dunham Lab tree above puts WLP001 very close to Wyeast 1792, with US-05 off in the relative hinterlands.

The Dunham Lab tree, looking at only strains in a specific group and with high quality sequence data, is definitely more accurate than the my big tree!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

There's a new preprint out from the Dunham lab in Seattle that is mostly looking at what happens to yeast genomes as they are repitched, but they also sequenced all the Chicos they could find to get an idea of the background diversity.
View attachment 687412

If I read it right, I think they're saying that a hypothetical ancestor (at Sierra Nevada ?) of the 1056 and WLP001 groups had a A234D mutation in BAT1, a branched-chain amino acid(BCAA) aminotransferase, but the WLP001 group has a recombination on one end of chromosome VIII that restores the wild type. This seems to be a weak point in the chromosome, as the recombination seems to happen a fair bit independently. They're submitting another paper just on the BAT1 story, but "the mutation led to a number of phenotypes including a sensitivity to osmotic stress, reduced fermentation ability when grown in 20% glucose [~1.075], and a growth defect in minimal media" Per Table 3 the mutants also produce more isoamylacetate ("banana") and fusel alcohols. However the strains with the chromosome recombination don't ferment out quite as fully, and also show more diacetyl.

I missed the BAT1 paper a few weeks ago, it's here : Effect of the Ala234Asp replacement in mitochondrial branched-chain amino acid aminotransferase on the production of BCAAs and fusel alcohols in yeast (paywalled, I've only read the abstract, I don't suppose someone has access? )

So they've done some genetics on it and it seems the A234D mutation has the same effect as deleting BAT1 entirely, even though it "shouldn't" affect it that badly based on homology studies. In both cases the mutation (ie BRY-96/Corporate/Bell's and the 1056/US-05 group, but not the WLP001 group) reduces growth in the log phase, reduces intracellular valine and leucine, increases fusels and reduces CO2 production.

 

[Andre3000]

There's a new preprint out from the Dunham lab in Seattle that is mostly looking at what happens to yeast genomes as they are repitched, but they also sequenced all the Chicos they could find to get an idea of the background diversity.
View attachment 687412

The sequences were filtered against Gallone BE051 (almost certainly WLP008 East Coast) as the most divergent US strain they had.

You can see two main groups in the bottom of the chart (Fig 2 in the paper, which I've annotated in green), one based around Wyeast 1056 that includes US-05 and Imperial A07 Flagship (and "Imperial M44" - they're double checking that, it may be Mangrove Jack M44??), and one group based around White Labs WLP001 that includes the Chicos from Gigayeast, Escarpment, Craft Cultures, Omega and the old Wyeast VSS strain 1792 (Fat Tire).

If I read it right, I think they're saying that a hypothetical ancestor (at Sierra Nevada ?) of the 1056 and WLP001 groups had a A234D mutation in BAT1, a branched-chain amino acid(BCAA) aminotransferase, but the WLP001 group has a recombination on one end of chromosome VIII that restores the wild type. This seems to be a weak point in the chromosome, as the recombination seems to happen a fair bit independently. They're submitting another paper just on the BAT1 story, but "the mutation led to a number of phenotypes including a sensitivity to osmotic stress, reduced fermentation ability when grown in 20% glucose [~1.075], and a growth defect in minimal media" Per Table 3 the mutants also produce more isoamylacetate ("banana") and fusel alcohols. However the strains with the chromosome recombination don't ferment out quite as fully, and also show more diacetyl.

Both the WLP001 and 1056 groups mostly have just three copies of chromosome V, but their putative ancestor BRY-96 has four copies (green and blue squares respectively in diagram). Again this seems to be something that is rather fluid, but they observed four copies arising in a population of 1056 and spreading as it was repitched in a brewery. It could be something that gives a selective advantage in some environments but not others, or it could be just a random thing that happened at a bottleneck on the way to 1056 and WLP001.

I read "The strain BRY-96, which is used in Elysian Brewing Co." as meaning that Elysian buy in BRY-96 direct from Siebel/Lallemand, their version is certainly very close to a version sourced from Lallemand. The tree fits previous suggestions that A30 Corporate is derived from Elysian one way or another and it's the closest strain to BRY-96 that's commercially available, but the strain sourced from Elysian is closer to BRY-96 than it is to A30. Also it looks like Bell's yeast is a BRY-96 that's spent some time evolving away from Siebel.

It's interesting the way that the "San Diego/Pacman" group are distinct from the main BRY-96 family - and how did BE082 get to Belgium? @suregork and friends were already pretty certain that BE071 was WLP090 and this rather confirms it (also BE098 as 1056, and this tree rather suggests BE102 was US-05)

However, one surprise is that they reckon that NRRL Y-7408, isolated from Ballantine in 1972, is probably a cousin rather than an ancestor of the BRY-96 group, based on "large segments of variation" that it has lost compared to the BRY-96 group. Presumably BE065 has also lost them.

BE065/68/69 were the main uncertainties in the main run of White Labs yeasts in the original Gallone paper. Two obvious candidates are
WLP019 California IV and WLP076 Old Sonoma (New Albion) but we can't be sure - BE044-086 were pretty much all the White Lab strains in numerical order, but they may have eg had some strains from commercial customers of theirs in there somehow. Is SNPA BE007 or BE068?

There's also a ton of detail on how yeast genomes change over time, but that's another story....

I must have missed this post! Some great stuff here. I take it my best alternative if I want to get close to Elysian / A30 / BRY-96 group might be Bells? A guy can order it from the Bells store. I keep wondering if there's a more common WLP equivalent in there somewhere.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I must have missed this post! Some great stuff here. I take it my best alternative if I want to get close to Elysian / A30 / BRY-96 group might be Bells?

In short - yes.

Although Lallemand BRY-97 may also work, although nothing's been published it seems like it's an early member of the group, but might have the BAT1 mutation that would put it as an ancestor of the 1056/US-05 subgroup.

And usual caveat that phenotypes can differ even between quite close relatives, as you can see between any mother and son.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I grabbed this from a recent Fermentis seminar, it's the first time I've seen any kind of family tree from Fermentis. Unfortunately it's not great quality and doesn't have many comparators, which reduces the potential precision. Also they've done it the "wrong way round" compared to the ones we're used to, so I've flipped and rotated it.

I guess the biggest "surprise" is BE-256 showing up in the middle of the English yeasts, which immediately reminds one of WLP540.

Also K-97 looks suspiciously close to being in what I assume are the lager yeasts, although you'd expect a kolsch strain to be close to that region.

Would be interesting to know what wine yeast F-2 is, and what they're using in what I think is HA-18 (it's the same photo as in their catalogue, but I can't be sure that's what it is).

Pinging @dmtaylor and @suregork if they've not seen this before.

 

[dmtaylor]

@Northern_Brewer , no I have not seen this before now. Thanks! I will study it in detail tonight or tomorrow. Awesome.

EDIT: 2 hours later.....

I found some time.

BE-256 is indeed interesting. While I doubt it is very closely related to WLP540, I can agree it looks like it could share English heritage in that wing of the family tree. It might be one of those weird interesting mutants that manages to attenuate high and produce a good bit of isoamyl acetate (banana) -- I'm thinking along the lines of the POF+ English yeasts, except on this one it's POF- but full of banana. A mutant like this seems rare, but it could happen I suppose. That, or their study is just erroneous on this one. Almost a little too surprising to be very believable.

K-97 was already listed next to 1007 on @suregork 's page, and while relatively clean and similar to 1007 in its fermentation characteristics, it's not what I would consider to be particularly lager-like in my experience, so I'm not sure I would trust a leap toward the lager family. Or possibly, it's some sort of blend of alt and lager yeast strains so that it could show up in two places. I know personally I'm not happy with K-97 in my own brewery, and won't use it again. Wyeast 1007 turns out better IMO -- this one would be my go-to altbier yeast in future. I am not aware of any White Labs "equivalent". Bottom line here, I think K-97 stays over by 1007.

The other one I find interesting is BE-134. In my own table, I had placed this one next to WLP590 "French Saison". I don't recall my basis, I'd have to dig and ponder some more if needed. But now, based on the above image, I'm wondering if BE-134 could be more akin to like WLP351, the so-called "Bavarian Weizen" strain that might actually be pastorianus!? With all of these being POF+ and high attenuation, it's hard to figure exactly what fits where, but what's clear is that they are all in that same mosaic neighborhood. That at least makes sense.

The others all appear consistent with what we knew previously. I myself remain ignorant of the wine strains and bottling strains, as my focus is really just beer yeast, but if anyone wants to direct me where I should stick them on my table, I suppose I would consider it.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

We now have the big one! NCYC have released 230 genomes as Project PRJEB42916 here :
https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJEB42916/
https://ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/view/PRJEB42916

There's also now a genome field on their strain pages. I've extracted the equivalent NCYC numbers :
70,72,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,95,96,97,232,235,236,241,356,357,358,360,361,363,367,368,401,430,478,479,482,491,505,609,619,620,621,622,667,672,684,695,816,826,956,963,996,1001,1004,1006,1007,1010,1017,1023,1026,1030,1033,1037,1044,1052,1055,1064,1072,1097,1102,1111,1118,1132,1147,1151,1159,1163,1167,1179,1183,1190,1199,1211,1218,1228,1240,1243,1245,1260,1264,1270,1274,1280,1283,1286,1289,1292,1298,1308,1311,1315,1321,1337,1406,1407,1408,1409,1410,1413,1414,1415,1444,1529,1603,1681,1765,2397,2401,2402,2517,2587,2592,2695,2733,2737,2776,2777,2778,2779,2780,2798,2855,2945,2947,2967,2974,3025,3026,3028,3030,3031,3032,3033,3035,3036,3037,3038,3039,3051,3052,3076,3077,3114,3121,3122,3123,3124,3125,3126,3127,3265,3311,3313,3314,3315,3318,3319,3324,3325,3326,3331,3333,3334,3338,3339,3340,3341,3342,3343,3403,3406,3445,3447,3448,3449,3455,3456,3457,3458,3460,3461,3462,3464,3465,3467,3470,3472,3486,3487,3493,3497,3498,3499,3510,3511,3513,3514,3515,3516,3521,3522,3523,3528,3529,3546,3549,3552,3557,3612,3630,3997,4063,4068,4081

So if @suregork has nothing better to do....

Whilst we're on the subject, did anyone take a look at the genomes released by Brewlab and friends, of yeast from McEwan's stout recovered from a 1895 shipwreck and from two bottles of King's Ale, brewed by Bass to celebrate the visit to the brewery of King Edward VII?

They found Debaryomyces hansenii and Brettanomyces/Dekkera bruxellensis in all three of the shipwreck bottles, one had a couple of fungi including Metschnikowia pulcherrima, and one had viable Sacc, they also found Deb, Brett, (lots of ) Talaromyces rotundus in the Bass bottles, and Sacc in one of them. Given the historical importance of Bass and McEwan's, it would be fascinating to see how they fit in to the tree.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jib.641https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJNA671797
@suregork - is there a quick and dirty marker for distinguishing Beer2 from Beer1?

 

[suregork]

We now have the big one! NCYC have released 230 genomes as Project PRJEB42916 here :
https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJEB42916/
https://ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/view/PRJEB42916

There's also now a genome field on their strain pages. I've extracted the equivalent NCYC numbers :
70,72,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,95,96,97,232,235,236,241,356,357,358,360,361,363,367,368,401,430,478,479,482,491,505,609,619,620,621,622,667,672,684,695,816,826,956,963,996,1001,1004,1006,1007,1010,1017,1023,1026,1030,1033,1037,1044,1052,1055,1064,1072,1097,1102,1111,1118,1132,1147,1151,1159,1163,1167,1179,1183,1190,1199,1211,1218,1228,1240,1243,1245,1260,1264,1270,1274,1280,1283,1286,1289,1292,1298,1308,1311,1315,1321,1337,1406,1407,1408,1409,1410,1413,1414,1415,1444,1529,1603,1681,1765,2397,2401,2402,2517,2587,2592,2695,2733,2737,2776,2777,2778,2779,2780,2798,2855,2945,2947,2967,2974,3025,3026,3028,3030,3031,3032,3033,3035,3036,3037,3038,3039,3051,3052,3076,3077,3114,3121,3122,3123,3124,3125,3126,3127,3265,3311,3313,3314,3315,3318,3319,3324,3325,3326,3331,3333,3334,3338,3339,3340,3341,3342,3343,3403,3406,3445,3447,3448,3449,3455,3456,3457,3458,3460,3461,3462,3464,3465,3467,3470,3472,3486,3487,3493,3497,3498,3499,3510,3511,3513,3514,3515,3516,3521,3522,3523,3528,3529,3546,3549,3552,3557,3612,3630,3997,4063,4068,4081

So if @suregork has nothing better to do....

Whilst we're on the subject, did anyone take a look at the genomes released by Brewlab and friends, of yeast from McEwan's stout recovered from a 1895 shipwreck and from two bottles of King's Ale, brewed by Bass to celebrate the visit to the brewery of King Edward VII?

They found Debaryomyces hansenii and Brettanomyces/Dekkera bruxellensis in all three of the shipwreck bottles, one had a couple of fungi including Metschnikowia pulcherrima, and one had viable Sacc, they also found Deb, Brett, (lots of ) Talaromyces rotundus in the Bass bottles, and Sacc in one of them. Given the historical importance of Bass and McEwan's, it would be fascinating to see how they fit in to the tree.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jib.641https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJNA671797
@suregork - is there a quick and dirty marker for distinguishing Beer2 from Beer1?

Yeah I saw this earlier today, very cool! Will see what I can do, don't have that much extra time at the moment and that is quite a lot of data

 

[Northern_Brewer]

If it helps, I've matched a lot of the numbers to NCYC descriptions, first by doing a lookup on Seymour's list on Jim's and then by manually looking up the NCYC website. I got as far as NCYC3000 before getting bored which roughly corresponds to the millennium, by which time they were mostly collecting medical samples. I may get enthusiasm to finish it off, can't promise though!

A lot of their sequencing has been of the "a guy at Carlsberg or a hospital sent us this random sample a century ago, let's figure out what the hell it is" kind, also I wonder if they've been looking at the evolution of bread yeast given that it's something they regularly collect and have samples going back 100 years. But they bring it right up to date with some Voss and Hornindal strains.

NCYC 4081 is interesting - "Yorkshire Square Stone Type Ale yeast via USA. Reported as being very flocculent and producing a large head during fermentation. Only requires rousing once every six hours for half an hour, otherwise head production can be excessive." deposited December 2015.

NCYC70	Unknown 1933
NCYC72	Schmitt, Carlsberg Laboratorium.
NCYC74	Saccharomyces cerevisiae Hillman Hospital, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.
NCYC75	Unknown 1920
NCYC76	Unknown 1933
NCYC77	Baker's Yeast strain. Dr. A. Harden, Lister Institute, London
NCYC78	Unknown 1925
NCYC79	Fleischmann baker's yeast. 1942
NCYC80	Unknown 1930
NCYC81	Unknown 1942
NCYC82	Unknown A.Klöcker, Carlsberg Labs. Copenhagen.
NCYC83	Unknown Dr. A. Harden, Lister Institute. 1920
NCYC84	Barclay Perkins Brewery strain, Southwark, London, England, 1943.
NCYC85	Unknown Prf. A.J. Kluyver, Delft, Netherlands. Nov 1939 (!!!)
NCYC86	Unknown 'Old Process strain'. ATCC 7753
NCYC87	Distillery yeast. 1947 ATCC 9763
NCYC88	Ale strain. NCTC 6479, Thorne's Yeast S
NCYC89	Fleischmann's yeast cake
NCYC90	Unknown 1928
NCYC91	Ivory Coast Palm Wine, from Elaeis guineensis.
NCYC92	Unknown 1933
NCYC93	Unknown 1925
NCYC95	Unknown 1933
NCYC96	Unknown 1922
NCYC97	Unknown Dr. H.B. Hutchinson, Distillers Co. Ltd, Great Burgh, Epsom, UK. 1945
NCYC232	Strain S, an American brewery ale strain, 1951.
NCYC235	Whibread ZSC 169, anonymized British brewery ale strain, good head, 1953.
NCYC236	Whitbread ZSC 155, single-cell isolate of highly attenuative IPA strain, good head, 1951.
NCYC241	Whitbread SC16, Charrington Anchor Brewery, ale strain, good head, 1951.
NCYC356	Mead production strain
NCYC357	isolated from lees of Avize-Cramant Mead, north-eastern France, 1951.
NCYC358	isolated from lees of plum mead, 1951.
NCYC360	Distilling strain. D.R. Jackson, African Distillers (Rhodesia) Ltd.
NCYC361	Beer spoilage strain, from wort in Irish brewery. R.B. Gilliland 1952
NCYC363	anonymized historic stout production strain from an English Brewery, 1952
NCYC367	anonymized Yorkshire Square Stone system ale strain, good top-cropping characteristics, 1952.
NCYC368	anonymized Yorkshire Square Stone system ale strain, good top-cropping characteristics, 1952.
NCYC401	Burton type ale yeast, isolated from pressed brewer's yeast, 1953.
NCYC430	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Reisling wine strain, 1955.
NCYC478	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Sake production "Kyokai 6 strain" deposited by Dr. Sakaguchi, 1956.
NCYC479	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, sake production "Kyokai 7 strain" deposited by Dr. Sakaguchi, #9 in NCYC "Top Ten Yeasts" for commercial brewing, 1956.
NCYC482	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Champagne yeast, 1956.
NCYC491	Single cell isolate from baking yeast.
NCYC505	Oranjeboom Brewery ale strain, Netherlands, good head, 1957.
NCYC609	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, isolated from West Indian molasses, deposited by Tate & Lyle, 1960.
NCYC619	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Jerez Sherry production yeasts from Feduchy, 1962.
NCYC620	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Jerez Sherry production yeasts from Feduchy, 1962.
NCYC621	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Jerez Sherry production yeasts from Feduchy, 1962.
NCYC622	(Gilliland strain 1285) Guinness ale strain, under-attenuating strain unable to ferment malto-triose, 1960.
NCYC667	Unknown 1963
NCYC672	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Sherry yeasts, 1964
NCYC684	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Steinberg German wine yeast, 1965.
NCYC695	Unknown 1966
NCYC816	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Australian Epernay wine yeast, 1974.
NCYC826	Unknown 1976
NCYC956	Genetically defined strain. Genotype: SUC2 mal gal2 CUP1. R.K. Mortimer, YGSC,
NCYC963	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, anonymized British Brewery Ale Strain 7, 1973.
NCYC996	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, US Patented baking yeasts, 1981.
NCYC1001	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, from historic Whitbread collection, good head, flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1004	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, intermediate head, non-flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1006	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, good head, non-flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1007	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, good head, non-flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1010	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, good head, non-flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1017	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, no head, non-flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1023	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, good head, non-flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1026	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, no head, flocculent, the renowned Whitbread B equivalent strain, #8 in NCYC "Top Ten Yeasts" for commercial brewing, 1958. Is Wyeast 1026 "British Cask Ale" related?
NCYC1030	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, no head, non-flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1033	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, good head, non-flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1037	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, good head, non-flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1044	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, no head, flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1052	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, intermediate head, flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1055	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, no head, flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1064	anonymized British Brewery stout strain, good head, non-flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1072	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, intermediate head, flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1097	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, no head, non-flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1102	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, good head, flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1111	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, no head, flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1118	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, good head, non-flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1132	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, good head, flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1147	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, no head, non-flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1151	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, good head, non-flocculent, 1958.
NCYC1159	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, good head, flocculent, 1959.
NCYC1163	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, intermediate head, non-flocculent, 1959.
NCYC1167	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, no head, non-flocculent, 1959.
NCYC1179	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, intermediate head, non-flocculent, 1960.
NCYC1183	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, no head, flocculent, 1959.
NCYC1190	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, no head, flocculent, 1960.
NCYC1199	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, good head, flocculent, 1961.
NCYC1211	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, intermediate head, flocculent, 1962.
NCYC1218	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, good head, flocculent, 1963.
NCYC1228	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, good head, non-flocculent, 1964.
NCYC1240	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, no head, non-flocculent, 1966.
NCYC1243	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, intermediate head, non-flocculent, 1966.
NCYC1245	anonymized British Brewery ale strain, no head, fairly flocculent, high attenuating, modern non-top-cropping behavior well-suited to conical fermentors, good flavour, a popular historic English ale production strain, #3 in NCYC "Top Ten Yeasts" for commercial brewing, 1965.
NCYC1260	anonymized brewery ale strain, no head, flocculent, for use in tower continuous fermentors, 1968.
NCYC1264	anonymized British brewery ale strain, no head, flocculent, 1968.
NCYC1270	anonymized brewery ale strain, no head, flocculent, 1969.
NCYC1274	anonymized British brewery ale strain, good head, non-flocculent, 1969.
NCYC1280	anonymized British brewery ale strain, flocculent, 1969.
NCYC1283	anonymized British brewery ale strain, good head, non-flocculent, 1970.
NCYC1286	anonymized British brewery ale strain, good head, flocculent, 1970.
NCYC1289	anonymized British brewery ale strain, good head, flocculent, 1970.
NCYC1292	anonymized British brewery ale strain, no head, flocculent, 1970.
NCYC1298	anonymized British brewery ale strain, good head, flocculent, 1970.
NCYC1308	anonymized British brewery ale strain, no head, non-flocculent, 1971.
NCYC1311	anonymized British brewery ale strain, no head, flocculent, 1971.
NCYC1315	anonymized British brewery ale strain, no head, flocculent, 1972.
NCYC1321	anonymized British brewery ale strain, intermediate head, flocculent, 1973.
NCYC1337	anonymized British brewery stout strain, good head, non-flocculent, 1974.
NCYC1406	Wine production strain. Isolated from Grape must. Japan
NCYC1407	Sake strain isolated from moromi mash, Japan, 1982.
NCYC1408	Mesophilic wine production strain. Isolated from grape must. Japan
NCYC1409	Wine production strain. Japan
NCYC1410	Wine production strain. Japan
NCYC1413	Sauternes wine production strain.
NCYC1414	Tarragona wine production strain.
NCYC1415	Tokay 22 wine production strain.
NCYC1444	Ale production strain. UK 1982
NCYC1529	Active dried baker's yeast. 1984
NCYC1603	anonymized British brewery ale strain, 1986.
NCYC1681	bottom-cropping ale strain, used in pilot scale fermentors, 1987.
NCYC1765	Bakers yeast 1987
NCYC2397	British ale strain called Darley's ale yeast, fast fermentation, good head, Gilliland Type IV loose flaky/clumpy sediment, 1991.
NCYC2401	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Sri Lankan palm wine strains, 1992.
NCYC2402	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Sri Lankan palm wine strains, 1992.
NCYC2517	Burgundy strain UCDavis
NCYC2587	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, sake strain, 1994.
NCYC2592	Distiller's production strain. CBS 1200
NCYC2695	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, cider production strain "Rankine's 350" used commercially in Australia, deposited by University of California, Davis, USA, 1996.
NCYC2733	anonymized British brewery ale strain, 1985.
NCYC2737	anonymized British brewery ale strain, 1997.
NCYC2776	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, ******l isolate from patient recently treated with Clotrimazole, Antwerp, Belgium, 1997.
NCYC2777	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, ******l isolate from patient recently treated with Clotrimazole, Antwerp, Belgium, 1997.
NCYC2778	Oral isolate from patient, Antwerp, Belgium.
NCYC2779	Oral swab from patient, Antwerp, Belgium.
NCYC2780	******l swab from symptomless patient, Antwerp, Belgium.
NCYC2798	From mouth of AIDS patient, Germany.
NCYC2855	Wine production strain. CECT 1478 Tokaj22
NCYC2945	Distiller's yeast CBS 1508
NCYC2947	Wine production Bulgaria
NCYC2967	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, isolated from a stool sample in Notingham City Hospital, UK, 2000.
NCYC2974	Human throat UK 2000
NCYC3314	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, isolated from barrel fermentation in Napa Valley, USA, 2005.
NCYC3315
NCYC3318	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, isolated from wine fermentation in Maule Region, Chile, 2005.
NCYC3319	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, isolated from wine fermentation in Maule Region, Chile, 2005.
NCYC3406	anonymized British brewery ale strain, 2006.
NCYC3445
NCYC3447	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, isolated from grapes in Australia, 2007.
NCYC3448	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, isolated from Fruit of Opuntia stricta, Bahamas, 2007.
NCYC3460	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, isolated from Ragi (sake type wine), Japan, 2007.
NCYC3461	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, isolated from nectar of Bertam Palm, Malaysia, 2007.
NCYC3462	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, isolated from nectar of Bertam Palm, Malaysia, 2007.
NCYC3529	Human clinical isolate, from sputum. UK
NCYC3546	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, multi-strains from "Norwegian Kveik yeast blend. Traditional mixed brewing yeast sourced from kveikstokk (yeast log) Vos", 2009. #2 Rivene
NCYC3549	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, multi-strains from "Norwegian Kveik yeast blend. Traditional mixed brewing yeast sourced from kveikstokk (yeast log) Vos", 2009. #2 Rivene
NCYC3552	Saccharomyces cerevisiae, multi-strains from "Norwegian Kveik yeast blend. Traditional mixed brewing yeast sourced from kveikstokk (yeast log) Vos", 2009. #2 Rivene
NCYC3557	Mat a/alpha derivative of DBVPG6040
NCYC3612	Mat alpha derivative of YIIc17_E5
NCYC3630	Mat alpha derivative of Y12
NCYC3997	Single strain isolate from NCYC 3995, Traditional Norwegian Kveik Brewing yeast culture, Voss, Norway. #1 Sigmund
NCYC4063	Traditional Norwegian Kveik Brewing yeast, Hornindal, Norway. #5 Hornindal
NCYC4068	Traditional Norwegian Kveik Brewing yeast, Hornindal, Norway. #5 Hornindal
NCYC4081	Yorkshire Square Stone Type Ale production yeast.

 

[Andre3000]

don't have that much extra time at the moment and that is quite a lot of data

Where's the link to your GoFundMe .

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Where's the link to your GoFundMe .

Yeast people use OnlyFAN...

Don't get your hopes up too high - the NCYC started with brewing yeast, in particular a load of yeast from Whitbread, but in recent years has been more involved with gathering clinical samples from British hospitals, so there's a lot of those in this list.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

There's a new preprint out from the Dunham lab in Seattle that is mostly looking at what happens to yeast genomes as they are repitched, but they also sequenced all the Chicos they could find to get an idea of the background diversity....

There's also a ton of detail on how yeast genomes change over time, but that's another story....

If anybody's interested, Escarpment are holding a webinar with Dunham about the Chico stuff, and in particular its evolution on repitching, tomorrow-evening-ish. Unfortunately it's 1am my time so I will probably pass, but if anybody's interested it's at :
https://www.crowdcast.io/e/mutant-beer-yeast-evolution/register

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I've just come across an interesting paper - random lab guy at brewery doing next-gen sequencing as you do (turns out Matt Cottrell has 89 papers to his name from his former life as a marine microbiologist, this is not his first rodeo) - that is the first published confirmation I've seen that BRY-97 is a Chico. In fact he used interdelta 12/21 to distinguish the 1056 subgroup (including Imperial A07 and Omega OYL-004) from the US-05 subgroup, and BRY-97 grouped with 1056/A07/OYL-004. Which rather supports the idea that "Imperial M44" in the chart above is MJ M44 West Coast, and that the latter is repacked BRY-97. Which kinda fits with previous suspicions based on lag times.

The paper is mostly looking at how repeatable interdeltas are for yeast ID - they work great for WLP001 out to 18 repitchings, but he had some problems with Belle Saison, albeit mostly that seemed to be sequencing problems rather than yeast related.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03610470.2022.2110645

These do correlate with @isomerization 's 12/21 interdeltas - US-05 is V in slide 3, you can see those clear 4 bands from 200-600bp even if it's not resolving the ones up at ~1300bp. 1.5% gel helps I guess.

In other, completely unrelated news, the first full hop genome - Cascade - was published 2 years ago, they're still polishing it up but it's at :
https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tpg2.20072https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJNA562558/Project home is at HopBase but it's a bit fragile, lots of it doesn't work for much of the time...

 

[dmtaylor]

@Northern_Brewer Thank you! This is indeed confirmation of our suspicions based on "Imperial M44" and the fact that Mangrove Jack repacks *something*. No updates to my sheet will be necessary, but this bolsters. Good to have someone like you who understands the lab stuff to help interpret, thanks again.

 

[joshbuhl]

There's now an update with a bunch of Wyeast and dry strains, albeit not all of them :
http://beer.suregork.com/?p=4030

Some key points -
S-04 is nothing to do with Whitbread, it's closest to 006 Bedford and 013 London
BRY-97 is absolutely nothing to do with the Chicos but is a distant cousin of S-33/Windsor

I've just come across an interesting paper - ….. that is the first published confirmation I've seen that BRY-97 is a Chico. In fact he used interdelta 12/21 to distinguish the 1056 subgroup (including Imperial A07 and Omega OYL-004) from the US-05 subgroup, and BRY-97 grouped with 1056/A07/OYL-004. Which rather supports the idea that "Imperial M44" in the chart above is MJ M44 West Coast, and that the latter is repacked BRY-97. Which kinda fits with previous suspicions based on lag times.

So, the two papers contradict each other re. BRY-97 is or is NOT a chico? Sorry, don‘t understand much of the nitty gritty of this…

 

[Northern_Brewer]

So, the two papers contradict each other re. BRY-97 is or is NOT a chico?

BRY-97 is a Chico, the early sequencing had some kind of problem with the wrong labels or whatever.

 

[joshbuhl]

BRY-97 is a Chico, the early sequencing had some kind of problem with the wrong labels or whatever.

Ok, thx. And have I read the results correctly that BRY-97 is in fact a much more closely related Chico-Relative than US-05? I in my naivity up until now had believed that US-05 was Chico. My understanding now is that there are several closely related Chico-Siblings, one of which is BRY-97. Is there an „original“ Chico, the Chico?

Cheers!

 

[McMullan]

What difference does it make? A brewer should choose a yeast that produces beer he or she is happy with regardless of its hypothesised genetic ancestry. Even genetically identical (by descent) yeast can behave differently based on how they interact with the environment. So, in theory, two genetically identical yeast cells separated at budding, sent to different breweries and remaining genetically identical (without mutation) could still diverge behaviourally over time, because of heritable non-genetic factors. Epigenetics. If there’s one thing biologists have learnt over the last 20 years or so, it’s how genetics is just one layer of biological organisation, not so much the ‘blueprint’ it was once thought, but more a set of loose guidelines how to build living things, which are clearly more than just genetics.

It’s best to view most of these publications as low-value ‘technical reports’ lacking sufficient scientific integrity to warrant publication in science journals. The published phylogenies are mainly untestable hypotheses beyond low resolution phylogeography. Drilling down into higher resolution analyses, e.g., variants of strains (therefore at least some strains or perhaps all, depending on samples and molecular markers), gets too noisy. Establishing, for example, genetic identity by decent and direction of gene flow, are impossible in most cases and merely fudged by assumptions like ‘the simplest path is correct’. In most cases, without solid independent evidence to support ‘genetic’ conclusions, it borders on pseudoscience and even fantasy feeding biased narratives in the wrong hands. Academic stamp collecting. All that matters really is brewers are happy with the yeast they choose to pitch.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Ok, thx. And have I read the results correctly that BRY-97 is in fact a much more closely related Chico-Relative than US-05? I in my naivity up until now had believed that US-05 was Chico. My understanding now is that there are several closely related Chico-Siblings, one of which is BRY-97. Is there an „original“ Chico, the Chico?

Stop thinking there's One True Chico. Look at the pictures below which are all of the same person, but which show him with different body sizes, all the cells will have been replaced, some will be genetically mutated compared to the original fertilised egg (notably in his prostate recently), his hair is different - which is the Charles?

So it is with yeast - they evolve and change just through the process of being repitched in a brewery. You can't say that the original ($$$) BRY-96 is "the" Chico - as it had never been anywhere near California when it went into a freezer at Siebel. In as much as there was ever a One True Chico, it existed for a fleeting moment after a few generations of arriving at Sierra Nevada and adapting to the conditions there. But now Sierra Nevada makes their beer with a yeast that has changed since that time.

Yeast are in a state of constant change, sometimes those changes matter to a brewer, often they don't. But changes are inevitable. Brewers try to simplify things for themselves by using names like Chico which don't capture the changes, and marketeers are even worse.

But your One True Chico does not exist. If you want to make a beer like Sierra Nevada's 2024 beers, then harvest yeast from their beer, they condition with the production strain. Assuming BRY-97 is the "Imperial M44" in the family tree above, then it's more closely related to US-05 than either of them are to WLP001 or BRY-96. Whilst I disagree with McMullan on the importance of taxonomy, I would agree with him on this - don't worry so much about the detailed taxonomy, and use the strain that works best for you.

 

[joshbuhl]

Stop thinking there's One True Chico….

But your One True Chico does not exist. …. and use the strain that works best for you.

Cheers NB.

I‘m definitely fine with using what turns out to work best and am not on a quest of the Holy Grail of The One True Chico, rather I‘m at the stage where I‘m just starting to compare same recipe with different yeast strains, and am trying to figure out which one are worth comparing.

My actual yeast quest at the moment is with the London Ale III family, how similar (or different?) Verdant, 1318, London Fog and Imperial Juice actually are, whether it‘s worth trying out the expensive liquid yeasts or if Verdant is „good/simllar enough“ and what the heck is actually in M66. Wouldn‘t happen to have any imput on that, would you?

cheers!

Josh

 

[McMullan]

Whilst I disagree with McMullan on the importance of taxonomy

I’m not questioning the importance of good taxonomy. Quite the opposite. These ‘domesticated’ yeast phylogenies are a fuzzy branch of taxonomy fogged by being artificial populations with insufficient reliable info re sources (and sinks). Therefore the samples are poorly ‘labelled’ regardless of good practices followed in any lab. They’re going to mainly remain untestable hypotheses. Sequencing DNA is easy. And cheap these days. Confirming the hypothetical phylogenies with independent (non-genetic) evidence is the tricky bit in most cases. That’s what good taxonomy is about.

 

[duelerx]

Stop thinking there's One True Chico. Look at the pictures below which are all of the same person, but which show him with different body sizes, all the cells will have been replaced, some will be genetically mutated compared to the original fertilised egg (notably in his prostate recently), his hair is different - which is the Charles?

So it is with yeast - they evolve and change just through the process of being repitched in a brewery. You can't say that the original ($$$) BRY-96 is "the" Chico - as it had never been anywhere near California when it went into a freezer at Siebel. In as much as there was ever a One True Chico, it existed for a fleeting moment after a few generations of arriving at Sierra Nevada and adapting to the conditions there. But now Sierra Nevada makes their beer with a yeast that has changed since that time.

Yeast are in a state of constant change, sometimes those changes matter to a brewer, often they don't. But changes are inevitable. Brewers try to simplify things for themselves by using names like Chico which don't capture the changes, and marketeers are even worse.

But your One True Chico does not exist. If you want to make a beer like Sierra Nevada's 2024 beers, then harvest yeast from their beer, they condition with the production strain. Assuming BRY-97 is the "Imperial M44" in the family tree above, then it's more closely related to US-05 than either of them are to WLP001 or BRY-96. Whilst I disagree with McMullan on the importance of taxonomy, I would agree with him on this - don't worry so much about the detailed taxonomy, and use the strain that works best for you.

View attachment 842984View attachment 842985View attachment 842986View attachment 842987View attachment 842988

Of all the Chicos which one is your favorite?

 

[Franktalk]

My favorite is Chico and the man!

 

[SkiHazy]

Cheers NB.

I‘m definitely fine with using what turns out to work best and am not on a quest of the Holy Grail of The One True Chico, rather I‘m at the stage where I‘m just starting to compare same recipe with different yeast strains, and am trying to figure out which one are worth comparing.

My actual yeast quest at the moment is with the London Ale III family, how similar (or different?) Verdant, 1318, London Fog and Imperial Juice actually are, whether it‘s worth trying out the expensive liquid yeasts or if Verdant is „good/simllar enough“ and what the heck is actually in M66. Wouldn‘t happen to have any imput on that, would you?

cheers!

Josh

Hey Josh, wondering if you have any results to share on the comparison of the London Ale III family. Very interested in this as well. Cheers

 

[joshbuhl]

Hi Ski,

Sorry for the delay in replying..I'm not here very often...

No, my research & brewing have been on hold since february due to a knee replacement surgery, so no further results.

If all this interests you, then you shound check out the "yeastmaster" resource from @dmtaylor as well äs this thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/from-the-lab-family-tree-of-white-labs-yeast.642831

Cheers,

Josh

 

[dmtaylor]

If all this interests you, then you shound check out... this thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/from-the-lab-family-tree-of-white-labs-yeast.642831

Oops, that's a circular reference.

Here is one link that I haven't seen on this thread yet ( ):

http://tinyurl.com/yeastmaster

Josh, I hope all has gone well with your knee replacement. My dad has had both his knees done and after the therapy he is LOVING the results.