Fullers recipes for ESB/Pride/Chiswick, Imperials, NEIPA - from the horse's mouth

[Colindo]

@Northern_Brewer Thanks for the info! I missed checking Ron's blog throughout March and am still catching up.

I told him that John Hatch at Sambrook's Brewery has all the Young's brewlogs with him. Glad he followed my advice.
John told me that the typical fermentation profile was to pitch at 16°C and ferment at 20°C. Wyeast 1768 behaves similar to the Fuller's yeast in that it fusels very quickly above 20°C. So a good fermentation control is vital.

 

[hopsnmalt]

After doing some extensive research on this yeast, I found out that this yeast was one used by Fullers many decades ago.

Fullers fermented their wort with dual strains. But in the 1970s, the head brewer (Reg Drury?), found a more consistent product by employing a single yeast strain.

 

[hopsnmalt]

The yeast mentioned above is Wyeast 1768-PC.

Also, Youngs used invert sugar blends in many of their fine ales in the late 1990s. I really miss their fabulous 6.4% bottle conditioned Youngs Special London Ale from the 1990s.

 

[Colindo]

@hopsnmalt Hi, I heard the rumour that it is a second Fuller's strain before, but could not find any reliable source for that. Did you find any? Most solid references point to the origin of Young's. I made a clone of the current Young's Special and found that it hit home quite well.

In the 90s Young's used the proprietary sugar "Young's Special Mixture", which is nowadays only used in the Winter Warmer. I gave the specifications of that sugar here.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

But in the 1970s, the head brewer (Reg Drury?), found a more consistent product by employing a single yeast strain.

"More consistent product"? Sounds like you've been listening to too many PRs. They went down to one strain when they moved to conicals in the late 70s, but it has now evolved so that two strains can be distinguished genetically (John Keeling, pers comm).

It's kinda moot the origins of the yeast lab versions - none of them, with the possible exception of Imperial Pub, taste anything like the actual Fuller's yeast, and it is easily harvested from things like 1845.

Bottled Spesh is still available, it was certainly bottle conditioned before lockdown but I've not had any in the new branding since.