Interesting genome sequencing of some yeasts

[brewbama]

I noticed some Danstar Yeasts are identified on the ‘yeast wheel’ (Nottingham, Windsor, Munich, etc) but others aren’t (BRY97). Is ‘beer097’ BRY97?

 

[Robert65]

Beer097, etc., are designations from one of the papers; BRY97 is originally the accession number from the Siebel yeast bank, so no.

BRY97 *was* up in the Mixed clade in the previous tree (with beer097 right where you note,) but is missing from the Oct 2019 version. So, hmm. Nothing I can find in comments on suregork's blog to indicate what happened. Where'd it go? Anybody?

 

[dmtaylor]

Different studies looked at different yeasts. There have been at least 4 or 5 recent studies that I know of. The last one, Langdon, didn't look at BRY-97. Many yeast strains have never been evaluated at all. And the "beer0xx" designations have no ties with the manufacturer's numberings, so no, beer097 is not BRY-97.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

BRY97 *was* up in the Mixed clade in the previous tree (with beer097 right where you note,) but is missing from the Oct 2019 version. So, hmm. Nothing I can find in comments on suregork's blog to indicate what happened. Where'd it go?

A bunch of strains got left out of that update, I think partly just because the focus was on the newly released sequences and I guess he was just trying to reduce supercomputer time. But also in the past IIRC BRY-97 got left out of one run just because he hadn't noticed it was in the list of hundreds of sequences that were released in one go. So I don't think it's anything sinister.

But you do highlight an interesting part of the tree that I don't think people have looked at closely enough. Lallemand's work has BRY-97 along with Belle Saison (so 3711 and WLP545????) and their version of Conan being less rubbish than most cerevisae at biorelease of glycosides, I've found T-58 is active at converting hop flavours, WLP050 Tennessee Whisky has some fun esters. I keep meaning to have more of a play with yeast in that bit of the tree as I think they have a lot to offer modern style beers, but that potential is overlooked as they're not as sexy as some yeasts.

 

[barleyhaus]

I see the strain VTT A-63015 cited a lot in brewing research. Is there a way to confirm which commercial strain this translates?

 

[suregork]

I see the strain VTT A-63015 cited a lot in brewing research. Is there a way to confirm which commercial strain this translates?

It's a lager strain from a Finnish brewery. It is quite similar to W34/70. The 63 in the beginning of the code means it came to VTT's culture collection in 1963.

 

[suregork]

I noticed some Danstar Yeasts are identified on the ‘yeast wheel’ (Nottingham, Windsor, Munich, etc) but others aren’t (BRY97). Is ‘beer097’ BRY97?

View attachment 665499

A bunch of strains got left out of that update, I think partly just because the focus was on the newly released sequences and I guess he was just trying to reduce supercomputer time. But also in the past IIRC BRY-97 got left out of one run just because he hadn't noticed it was in the list of hundreds of sequences that were released in one go. So I don't think it's anything sinister.

But you do highlight an interesting part of the tree that I don't think people have looked at closely enough. Lallemand's work has BRY-97 along with Belle Saison (so 3711 and WLP545????) and their version of Conan being less rubbish than most cerevisae at biorelease of glycosides, I've found T-58 is active at converting hop flavours, WLP050 Tennessee Whisky has some fun esters. I keep meaning to have more of a play with yeast in that bit of the tree as I think they have a lot to offer modern style beers, but that potential is overlooked as they're not as sexy as some yeasts.

I left out a couple of strains in the newest update because they were sequenced to a very low coverage and with quite short reads. In practice, this means the quality was quite bad and results could therefore be unreliable. If I remember correctly, BRY-97 was one of these strains. It's in the Mixed clade, but exact placement might not be completely accurate.

 

[barleyhaus]

Has anyone looked at L17 or OYL-114, the purported Augustiner strains? Based on the way they’ve thrown sulfur and their fermentation character, I’m curious if they also fall into the 838 camp being cerevisiae strains.

 

[couchsending]

Yeah interesting to note that two of the most popular commercial lager strains (at least in craft) here in the US, Augustiner and Andechs, aren’t listed or at least easily identified in these studies? Or did I miss something.

 

[sykesey]

Has anyone looked at L17 or OYL-114, the purported Augustiner strains? Based on the way they’ve thrown sulfur and their fermentation character, I’m curious if they also fall into the 838 camp being cerevisiae strains.

I think it will take a while before we have sequencing data on that. It would be possible to do a PCR on the yeast to at least see if it contained eubayanus/pastorianus primers, but until someone either runs it through PCR, illumina or nanopore it's guesswork at this point.

and to top it off augustiner has a ton of yeast banks all probably with slightly different properties - wlp860, l17, oyl114, wyeast 2352PC, BSI augustiner...

 

[Andre3000]

Different studies looked at different yeasts. There have been at least 4 or 5 recent studies that I know of. The last one, Langdon, didn't look at BRY-97. Many yeast strains have never been evaluated at all. And the "beer0xx" designations have no ties with the manufacturer's numberings, so no, beer097 is not BRY-97.

Is there a functional difference between "2121" and "W34/70"? In your sheet you've stated W34/70 as being a high flocc'er (which fermentis also states), but Wyeast states 2124 as Low-Medium.

I'm trying to decide which of the two I should keep as my go-to lager yeast .

 

[Robert65]

W-34/70 is the designation of a culture in the yeast bank at Weihenstephan (indicates isolate no. 34 of strain no. 70; there are also other isolates in their catalog.) It has been acquired and made available by many manufacturers, who maintain their cultures in their own yeast banks. Examples are WY 2124, WLP 830, and Saflager W-34/70. But as with any yeast from any source, they can change over time in the posession of each individual lab, and the particulars of each manufacturer's handling and production process can lead to selection favoring different performance characteristics. So there may be functional differences between various descendants of fhe original W-34/70, as received from different manufacturers. (Note the veritable zoo of "Chicos" out there.) I believe that the three I mentioned behave differently enough to matter to some brewers, though largely similar. See for yourself. (JFTR, though I've used the various 34/70s probably hundreds of times, I really don't care for any of them and don't use them anymore.)

 

[dmtaylor]

Is there a functional difference between "2121" and "W34/70"? In your sheet you've stated W34/70 as being a high flocc'er (which fermentis also states), but Wyeast states 2124 as Low-Medium.

I'm trying to decide which of the two I should keep as my go-to lager yeast .

I haven’t used 2124 yet. My advice is to try them both and form your own opinion.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

W-34/70 is the designation of a culture in the yeast bank at Weihenstephan (indicates isolate no. 34 of strain no. 70; there are also other isolates in their catalog.)

Other way round, W34 is the original, 34/70 is a specific isolate, as is W34/78. There's also W34/70-6.94 as an isolate of the isolate.

Weihenstephan strain names all begin with W, so for instance W68 is the most famous wheat beer strain that also has various "named" isolates like W68-6.94.

 

[Franktalk]

Other way round, W34 is the original, 34/70 is a specific isolate, as is W34/78. There's also W34/70-6.94 as an isolate of the isolate.

Weihenstephan strain names all begin with W, so for instance W68 is the most famous wheat beer strain that also has various "named" isolates like W68-6.94.

Is WB-06 from Weihenstephan? If so, for what beer style is it used?

 

[Robert65]

Other way round, W34 is the original, 34/70 is a specific isolate, as is W34/78. There's also W34/70-6.94 as an isolate of the isolate.

Thanks for turning me right way round.

 

[dmtaylor]

Is WB-06 from Weihenstephan? If so, for what beer style is it used?

NO. WB-06 is actually Belgian in origin, and a diastaticus variant, would probably be okay in a saison, and is popular also for NEIPA, probably due to its poor flocculation mostly, but of course NEIPA people will tell you it's all about "biotransformation", if you believe in that sort of thing.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

NO. WB-06 is actually Belgian in origin, and a diastaticus variant, would probably be okay in a saison, and is popular also for NEIPA, probably due to its poor flocculation mostly, but of course NEIPA people will tell you it's all about "biotransformation", if you believe in that sort of thing.

Since we would have not beer if yeast did not biotransform barley into alcohol, I don't think the fact of biotransformation is in much doubt. Whether it is useful for your beer is another matter.

Actually the biotransformation capability of WB-06 is a disaster for NEIPAs, as it's the Megatron of biotransformers, it trashes all hop flavour. But the likes of Treehouse appear to be using it or a close relative as a very small part of a yeast blend, <5% to contribute esters and other yeast flavours.

WB is just a Fermentis designation for wheat beer (even though it's part of the saison family and not a hefe yeast), nothing to to with Weihenstephan.

 

[Andre3000]

@dmtaylor a notification popped of on my phone randomly of your spreadsheet getting a bunch of attention on Reddit. Apparently I wasn't the only one stoked on it. Low key proud of you haha. It's a good spreadsheet. I reference it a lot.

Question to anyone: I really wanted to try A30 Corporate. I emailed Imperial and they said they didn't release it this year as homebrew packets. What's my next closest available to BRY-96? WY1217 won't be released until Q2.

Edit: WLP001?

 

[couchsending]

@dmtaylor a notification popped of on my phone randomly of your spreadsheet getting a bunch of attention on Reddit. Apparently I wasn't the only one stoked on it. Low key proud of you haha. It's a good spreadsheet. I reference it a lot.

Question to anyone: I really wanted to try A30 Corporate. I emailed Imperial and they said they didn't release it this year as homebrew packets. What's my next closest available to BRY-96? WY1217 won't be released until Q2.

Edit: WLP001?

In my experience Corporate kinda sucked. It was a big diacetyl producer and took quite some time to clean up after itself. I reached out to the guys at Cloudburst and they even mentioned that it was a bit slow and you had to be careful.

Midwestern Ale (Bells) from The Yeast Bay and Old Newark Ale (Ballantine) from East Coast Yeast are way better options for something in the American Ale family tree. I would use them both over 001/1056 every time. They ferment faster and flocc better.

 

[dmtaylor]

@dmtaylor a notification popped of on my phone randomly of your spreadsheet getting a bunch of attention on Reddit. Apparently I wasn't the only one stoked on it. Low key proud of you haha. It's a good spreadsheet. I reference it a lot.

Question to anyone: I really wanted to try A30 Corporate. I emailed Imperial and they said they didn't release it this year as homebrew packets. What's my next closest available to BRY-96? WY1217 won't be released until Q2.

Edit: WLP001?

Thanks Andre. I'm happy that even more people are finding it useful. And now I've received even more technical feedback and made a couple more tweaks based on others' knowledge and experience which is really great.

Sorry I haven't dug into all the Imperial yeasts yet to add to the table; Imperial is a project for some point in my future. That being said...

A30 Corporate is derived from good old BRY-96, "Chico". So WLP001 or 1056 would both be pretty darn good substitutes. I might steer away from US-05 because of its much higher attenuation, unless you like it more dry and higher alcohol than A30 would give. Some sources including a truly awesome genomic chart:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/imperial-yeast-a30-corporate.651586/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...f-white-labs-yeast.642831/page-2#post-8916547
Cheers.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Link to the /r/homebrewing topic: Popular Yeast Strains Aren't What They Seem? (as there is some interesting discussion between people that I follow).

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Before we get too carried away with idea that WLP838 is an ale and Wyeast 1187 is a lager, we should perhaps also consider the idea that they've just got mixed up. It certainly happened in a couple of cases with the 1002 genomes from Strasbourg, it's tough managing this number of samples and mixups do happen. Remember this is provisional data at this stage.

And sure enough, White Labs have done some PCRs and growth tests : (h/t duelerx)
https://www.whitelabs.com/news-update-detail?id=105&type=NEWS
They have WLP029 and WLP800 as cerevisiae, and WLP051, WLP515 and WLP810 upwards (including WLP838) as lager (well, eubayanus/cerevisiae hybrids if we're being picky). WLP802 doesn't have a eubayanus band but doesn't grow at 37C either so who knows about that.

 

[dmtaylor]

(New data incorporated yesterday (for anyone who understands or cares )).

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Guinness have done a detailed bit of stampcollecting on their current and archived yeasts, and compared them with yeasts from other classic Irish breweries like Smithwick's. The other Irish strains are all part of the Whitbread family, most closely related to Gallone's Beer066, which is possibly WLP041 Pacific ("Hale's/Gale's"). Whereas the Guinness yeasts are distinct and nothing to do with BE047 aka WLP004 Irish Ale!!!! Instead they're closer to BE052 which is WLP009 Australian and BE058 which may be WLP025 Southwold.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-05587-3

 

[VikeMan]

Whereas the Guinness yeasts are distinct and nothing to do with BE047 aka WLP004 Irish Ale!!!!

Love it! I never believed WLP004 was Guinness.

 

[McMullan]

That’s interesting. I’ve always enjoyed a good pint of Guinness, but can’t stand WLP004. Tried it a few times and just found it ‘metallic’ and prickly. Never got round to trying Wyeast’s offering.

 

[McMullan]

Guinness have done a detailed bit of stamp collecting

And archived it as such. With about as much application. I’m not even convinced these characterisations should be published in serious science journals, tbh. Where’s the science? How do we apply this information? If not like a stamp?

Edit: I noticed they didn’t stop at the stamp collecting. Good on them. A bit more interesting than a stamp collection.

 

[dmtaylor]

(Incorp'd in rev 127 )

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Whilst looking at the fermentation characteristics of "lager" yeast with a view to selecting one for high (1.053-1.074/13-18°P)/very-high (>1.074/18°P, they used 1.101/24°P in their tests) gravity brewing, this group from Jiangnan University in China found that some of them were hybrids of Saccharomyces kudriavzevii and S. cerevisiae - so similar hybrids to Wyeast 1214/WLP500/Abbaye.

The classical idea is that Group I(Saaz) lager yeasts are triploids with 2 eubayanus genomes and one cerevisiae whereas Group II (Frohberg) have two of each, but they found one ("BL25" from Germany) that was tetraploid despite appearing to belong to Group I by the Pham et al. PCR test. Likewise they had 42 strains that looked like Group II by the Pham et al PCR test, but 14 of the 42 were triploid.

"BL23" from China looked like a Saaz but had 37.44 % of its genome from S. kudriavzevii, "BL42" looked like a Frohberg but had 32.42 % from S. eubayanus and 12.8 % from S. uvarum; they had previously found that the Frohberg BL52 was a hybrid of S. cerevisiae and S. uvarum. They then used supposedly species-specific primers and had no hits for eubayanus on 3 of their 12 Saaz strains and 1 and an iffy one for kudriavzevii. Among their 42 Frohbergs they had 32 hits for S. kudriavzevii and 31 for S. eubayanus. Obviously the immediate question is how good are their PCR primers at only recognising one species, but one has to assume good faith by the previous workers who created them, in the absence of contrary evidence.

They were trying to breed yeast for very-high gravity brewing; they reckon that 1.101/24°P wort was equivalent in stress terms to 0.5M NaCl for lager yeast, . and 1.159/36°P was equivalent to 1.2M NaCl or 12 % ethanol. Although Frohberg strains are meant to be more robust than Saaz, they found that if anything the reverse was true for their high gravity fermentations as judged by cell growth but their attenuation was less and they produced more esters and fusel alcohols.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0740002024000170