Kolsch yeast origins/differences

[Broothru]

My brewing goal for 2025 is simple: to brew a Best of Show Kolsch. The style has been a long-time favorite of mine ever since first experiencing it one fine summer day just outside the Kolner Dom nearly three decades ago.

Over the intervening years I’ve brewed Kolsch many times, some good, some not so good, and some very good but just not the nirvana I’m looking to achieve. Last summer I brewed one for competition that scored 39 points and took First Place in category, but lost out in Best of Show.

This year I intend to make several minor tweaks in ingredients, brewing a number of batches to settle on the ‘perfect’ combination. Last year’s entry was 90% Weyermann Cologne, 5% Munich 1, 5% acidulated. The yeast was White Labs “Mythical Hammer” @ 65F/1BAR pressure, and came out very clean and crisp while clearing remarkably fast. In the past I’ve used WLP-029 and Wyeast 2565, and even WLP-800, with acceptable results, but not with the knockout punch I want.

On a whim, I ordered a new yeast from White Labs last month called WLP-4061 “Rhine Kolsch”. Turns out, this “new” yeast is actually a collaboration between White Labs and Yeast Bay, as it appears there may be some cooperative sharing (if not corporate merger) going on between the two companies.

The yeast is purported to be cultured from “an old Cologne brewery along the Rhine”, but cryptically doesn’t mentioned “whom”. P.J. Fruh (Dom) would seem like a possible source, but ‘supposedly’ Fruh is the origin of WLP029 so why would White Labs acquire what they already have? Anybody have an educated guess from Suregork or DNA tests?

My grist bill seems pretty basic and solid, but I’m striking out sourcing the Weyermann Cologne. I’m leaning towards some ‘top shelf’ pale Pilsner and Munich or Vienna with a touch of wheat and/or biscuit to see how it compares with my original recipe.

For hops I go with Spalt for FWH and Hallertau Mitt for everything else. Might try some Perle and Tettnang just to mix things up a bit while still remaining traditional. I stocked up on Gaffel and Reisendorf (can’t find any Fruh) so at least I’ll have something to compare with.

Prolly end up with at least five brew sessions and more than enough light lager to keep me supplied till next Halloween. Soliciting any and all opinions and suggestions in this 2025 quest on yeasts and grains. I’m pretty secure in my processes, but if you’ve got any specific thoughts on brewing or fermentation, those would be appreciated as well.

Prost!

 

[AdjunctBrewer]

Spotted Cow is (rumored to be?) fermented with Wyeast 2565 a Kolsch yeast. Maybe those (clone?) recipes hold some ideas for you.

 

[fluketamer]

2565 is great kolsch yeast.

 

[Halfakneecap]

Try Best Heidelberg as the base. I prefer 2565. I use 029 all the time for apa’s and everyday beers ( most of them ). I find it clean but i ferment it cool ( 15c ish )

 

[fluketamer]

that gives me an idea i may use my 2565 for an APA since i have it on hand . i wanted to use bry 97 but my slurry is old.

 

[Broothru]

Spotted Cow is (rumored to be?) fermented with Wyeast 2565 a Kolsch yeast. Maybe those (clone?) recipes hold some ideas for you.

View attachment 866177

I’ve got a case of Spotted Cow that I picked up last summer while visiting in Wisconsin. Just finishing up the last of a New Glaris mixed case, one of which was their Kolsch, along with the last morsel of about $100 worth of Wisconsin cheese that SWMBO’d insisted on buying (at least she let me buy the beer, so even trade).

I really like most of their beers, though the Kolsch left me sadly underwhelmed. It never occurred to me that a hybrid yeast like W2565 might be their house strain, but now it kinda’ makes sense. I think I’ll pop a ‘Cow with dinner tonight (appropriately, beef stew), to ward off the 14” of fresh snow + 21F temps.

 

[dmtaylor]

On a whim, I ordered a new yeast from White Labs last month called WLP-4061 “Rhine Kolsch”. Turns out, this “new” yeast is actually a collaboration between White Labs and Yeast Bay, as it appears there may be some cooperative sharing (if not corporate merger) going on between the two companies.

The yeast is purported to be cultured from “an old Cologne brewery along the Rhine”, but cryptically doesn’t mentioned “whom”. P.J. Fruh (Dom) would seem like a possible source, but ‘supposedly’ Fruh is the origin of WLP029 so why would White Labs acquire what they already have? Anybody have an educated guess from Suregork or DNA tests?

I've never been to Koln, but I imagine they have numerous breweries there. Which yeast comes from which brewery, who the hell knows -- the manufacturers won't tell us, and anyone who claims they think they know which is which is wrong probably 90% of the time or thereabouts. I shy away from guessing origins because most guesses are wrong.

I have little else to add, other than... good luck on your journey to brew a stellar Kolsch! I love a great Kolsch. If I were brewing one, I might cheat and use a real lager yeast, as 2565 is kind of a pain in the butt, and WLP029 just isn't great IMO.

 

[Broothru]

Try Best Heidelberg as the base. I prefer 2565. I use 029 all the time for apa’s and everyday beers ( most of them ). I find it clean but i ferment it cool ( 15c ish )

Great suggestion for Best Heidelberg, and I have some on hand from an Altbier I brewed a few years ago. Pretty sure it’s a Spring barley just like the Weyermann Cologne. I think I’ll do a head-to-head ‘brew-off’ with the two, in small batch sessions, since I have about 5 pounds of each.

 

[Broothru]

I've never been to Koln, but I imagine they have numerous breweries there. Which yeast comes from which brewery, who the hell knows -- the manufacturers won't tell us, and anyone who claims they think they know which is which is wrong probably 90% of the time or thereabouts. I shy away from guessing origins because most guesses are wrong.

I have little else to add, other than... good luck on your journey to brew a stellar Kolsch! I love a great Kolsch. If I were brewing one, I might cheat and use a real lager yeast, as 2565 is kind of a pain in the butt, and WLP029 just isn't great IMO.

I’m afraid any pseudo lager yeast like 2565 and 029 will bring some temperamental features along to the brew party. Finding the “right” temperature being a major one, along with poor flocculation in a beer that is meant to be sparklingly clear.

The hybrid White Labs “Mythical Hammer” performed beautifully in the three beers I brewed under pressure with it last year, as did the two beers I fermented with Lallemand “Nova Lager” which is also a hybrid but is not advertised as an ‘under pressure’ fermenter. It performed wonderfully at 65F and 1 BAR on a Helles and an American Lager.

For this Kolsch project, I want to stay as close as possible to traditional practices, so I’m ruling out pressure fermentation while sticking to locally produced German grains and Noble hops. Authentic top cropping yeasts fermented at high 50s~low 60s F and lagered for at least a month. My only cheats are the use of Whirlfloc, BioFine and ALDC enzymes. That should be O.K. though since the Northern Germany brewers traditionally flaunted the Bavarian brewers and their “purity” laws.

 

[wepeeler]

My brewing goal for 2025 is simple: to brew a Best of Show Kolsch.

Me and you @Broothru!

My Kolsch is basically my house beer. Everyone in my beer club loves it, but I can't seem to get better than a 41 in comps. A fellow club member brewed my recipe, and won our club comp with it, so there's that lol.

First off, I prefer Vienna vs Munich in my Kolsch. I also use all Tettnang hops and Omega Kolsch II. You can ferment it in the upper 60s, and it's surprisingly clean. It's my favorite Kolsch yeast, and I've tried every one I could get my hands on. I've tried FWH and DH. I prefer a 2oz DH to FWH, but I want to mess around with FWH more.

It's my favorite style to brew! Hope you get your BoS this year!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

On a whim, I ordered a new yeast from White Labs last month called WLP-4061 “Rhine Kolsch”. Turns out, this “new” yeast is actually a collaboration between White Labs and Yeast Bay, as it appears there may be some cooperative sharing (if not corporate merger) going on between the two companies.

Yeast Bay have been outsourcing the production of their more mainstream yeasts to White Labs for a while now (5+ years), which means that some of them have White Lab WLP4xxx codes. Don't think there's been anything new in that regard.

The yeast is purported to be cultured from “an old Cologne brewery along the Rhine”, but cryptically doesn’t mentioned “whom”. P.J. Fruh (Dom) would seem like a possible source, but ‘supposedly’ Fruh is the origin of WLP029 so why would White Labs acquire what they already have?

There's been some debate about whether WLP029 is an ale yeast, a lager yeast, or maybe something funny in between, White Labs own testing seems to suggest it's an ale yeast but some third-party labs think otherwise. So that would give a particular impetus to poking around with any "original" versions.

 

[Broothru]

I had not previously seen that blog post. Thanks very much for linking it. I had heard of some of the findings but not in that level of detail. Really interesting data. The methodology used by White Labs seems solid.

 

[Dog House Brew]

I too brew Kolsch every spring. 20g gets me through the year. I can’t win with it ever, not BOS anyway. I quit trying! I too use a little Vienna and hops used to be Tett all the way. I’ve been using
Gigayeast 021 for years. I keep overbuilding starters. I’ll have to try Omega. I did see they’re releasing 2575PC in April. I may have to try it too. Maybe that will get my Kolsch over the hump. My last batch scored well, but got dinged for being too high in gravity. The abv was 5.5% and 22ibu.
Good luck on your mission!!

 

[Halfakneecap]

Dont want to hijack, but its been quite a few years since i brewed a kolsch. Went through a bit of a phase. Always used 2565, pils and wheat malt. I've used 029 as my house ale yeast for a few years, but i use it cool, and never noticed any flavors id consider kolsch like, always find it clean and crisp.

Anyway, if i was to try to make a kolsch with 029, would i just ferment it on the warm side? 18c?
I just happen to have wheat malt, Best heidelberg, and spalter.

Guess i should try?

 

[Miraculix]

I wonder if wlp800 makes a good Kölsch at room temperature. Last time I used this yeast at room temperature, it was fairly clean with a tiny bit of fruit. In my mind that's exactly what I expect from a Kölsch. It also flocculated fairly decent.

 

[dmtaylor]

I wonder if wlp800 makes a good Kölsch at room temperature. Last time I used this yeast at room temperature, it was fairly clean with a tiny bit of fruit. In my mind that's exactly what I expect from a Kölsch. It also flocculated fairly decent.

This would be interesting to try. WLP800 has traditionally been used to make "lagers" but is actually cerevisiae and closely related to 2565. So it's just about as close as you're going to get to a true Kolsch yeast without being called "Kolsch".

 

[JohnDBrewer]

Huge Kolsch fan here. Been trying to perfect my recipe for years. 2565 always served me well, but about 3 years ago started splitting batches. Currently, have Kolsch II and a Wlp029 comparison going now. The Kolsch II wins hands down. I've done the comparison at to 2 different club's meeting, almost unanimous at both clubs. I don't a have a 2565 to Kolsch II, yet, so that's next. Using the 2565 won a few medals, never a BOS. Was in Koln a year ago August, and real Kolsch was everything I expected. Sending the k-II off to a big competition next month, see what kind of feedback comes back.

 

[Miraculix]

This would be interesting to try. WLP800 has traditionally been used to make "lagers" but is actually cerevisiae and closely related to 2565. So it's just about as close as you're going to get to a true Kolsch yeast without being called "Kolsch".

Yep, that's what I also thought. I'm just too much into the convenience of dry yeast these days to give it a try myself...

 

[Broothru]

This would be interesting to try. WLP800 has traditionally been used to make "lagers" but is actually cerevisiae and closely related to 2565. So it's just about as close as you're going to get to a true Kolsch yeast without being called "Kolsch".

I noticed that in the White Labs blog post on their lab work identifying s.cerevases and s. Pastorianus strain identities. In the past I had used WLP-800 in fermentation of a Kolsch congress wort not knowing its questionable genealogy. It turned out fine IIRC, but that was several years ago and I’ll have to dig up my brew notes as to temperatures, etc. Interesting, to say the least.

 

[Broothru]

Huge Kolsch fan here. Been trying to perfect my recipe for years. 2565 always served me well, but about 3 years ago started splitting batches. Currently, have Kolsch II and a Wlp029 comparison going now. The Kolsch II wins hands down. I've done the comparison at to 2 different club's meeting, almost unanimous at both clubs. I don't a have a 2565 to Kolsch II, yet, so that's next. Using the 2565 won a few medals, never a BOS. Was in Koln a year ago August, and real Kolsch was everything I expected. Sending the k-II off to a big competition next month, see what kind of feedback comes back.

Love to hear how it performs (Kolsch II), so be sure to revisit the thread in 6 months with the results (plus, recipe ?).

 

[bwible]

Last summer our club did an exploration of Kolsch as we had quite a few members who had never brewed one, myself included. Not a style I hate or anything, just one I never got around to in all my years of brewing.

Couple guys did a presentation then we broke into 4 teams of 4 - each brewed their own and we met up to compare and taste. Each team put their best one forward.

This is what I did - it was not sent forward, was not one of the winners.

Mine was one of the darker ones because as a Kolsch noob I used just a little victory malt and Munich malt - which in hindsight probably wasn’t necessary. Its only an ounce each but it looks like it made a significant color difference compared to the others. I did not use any Vienna which one brewer did at almost 50% and his wasn’t as dark as mine.

This is for my 3 gallon batch (collect 4 gallons, boil down to 3.5, 3.5 goes into the fermenter so I actually get 3 gallons of finished beer)

5lbs + 5 oz Pils malt
9 oz Wheat malt
1 oz Munich malt
1 oz Victory malt
2.5 oz Acid Malt (adjust my mash ph)

Perle 4.3% .8 oz 60 min
Hersbrucker 4.2% .25 oz 30 min
Spalt 4.3% .35 oz 10 min

Wyeast 2565 Kolsch Yeast

Adjusted my water to:

Ph: 5.53

Ca: 29
Mg: 4
Na: 16
Cl: 36
So4: 36

I did a step mash 117 for 25 min, 143 for 30 min, 159 for 15 min, 170 mash out for 10 min

Next time I would not use the Victory or Munich. Aside from the color it was pretty good.

 

[bwible]

And this is where we can get into these debates about competitions and styles that win vs styles that just don’t win. Once you get to the BOS round all bets are off as they’re comparing apples to oranges and banannas and it becomes all bias and individual preference. You might as well be trying to win BOS with an American Light Lager. Sure, it happens once in a blue moon but very few and far in between. They’re solid styles and can be well made but you’re never going to match up to the flavors that are present and that they’re looking for in other styles. Its not fair but thats how it is.

 

[Miraculix]

And this is where we can get into these debates about competitions and styles that win vs styles that just don’t win. Once you get to the BOS round all bets are off as they’re comparing apples to oranges and banannas and it becomes all bias and individual preference. You might as well be trying to win BOS with an American Light Lager. They’re solid styles and can be well made but you’re never going to match up to the flavors that are present and that they’re looking for in other styles. Its not fair but thats how it is.

Wouldn't it be easy just to take a look at the points which each beer got in it's respective category and let the highest scored beer win the BOS title?

 

[bwible]

Wouldn't it be easy just to take a look at the points which each beer got in it's respective category and let the highest scored beer win the BOS title?

No, because even thats biased. A competition might start with 11 or 12 judges. And that would be a well staffed one these days. They might have 17 flights to be judged. Each judge draws an assignment which may or may not be to their liking. Not everybody likes Belgians. But somebody has to judge it. Then there’s the dreaded herb spice vegetable beer category, which just about nobody wanted to judge when I was doing it. So judges get assigned from the beginning to categories they may or may not like. Are you really getting a fair score if your judge is assigned Belgians and doesn’t like Belgians? And of course there’s the order of entries. The judge may get your beer first, ninth, or 16th. Pallet fatigue is real.

These are all the factors they try to manage, but they can only do it so well, working with what they have.

 

[Miraculix]

No, because even thats biased. A competition might start with 11 or 12 judges. And that would be a well staffed one these days. They might have 17 flights to be judged. Each judge draws an assignment which may or may not be to their liking. Not everybody likes Belgians. But somebody has to judge it. Then there’s the dreaded herb spice vegetable beer category, which just about nobody wanted to judge when I was doing it. So judges get assigned from the beginning to categories they may or may not like. Are you really getting a fair score if your judge is assigned Belgians and doesn’t like Belgians? And of course there’s the order of entries. The judge may get your beer first ninth or 16th. Pallet fatigue is real.

These are all the factors they try to manage, but they can only do it so well, working with what they have.

I agree, one of the reasons I don't like these competitions.

 

[Halfakneecap]

Many years I was seriously hungover at a local competition and was asked to judge. I got high alcohol stouts. It was a long day and none of them tasted good, because I was hungover. I basically agreed with the 2 other judges ratings.

 

[JohnDBrewer]

Recipe I use:
RO Water with soft water czech pils profile
GM Pils - 50%
Munich l - 30%
Vienna - 15%
Acidulate malt - 2.5%
Wheat - 2.5%
Pearle .5oz - 60min
Pearle .5oz - 15min
Tettnag 1oz - 10min
Tettnag 1oz - 0min
Shoot for:
OG - 1.050
IBU - 25ish
FG - 1.009
90-min boil
Yeast starter
-omega kolsch II, or
-wyeast 2565
Ferment at 60 degrees for 10-14 days (raise the temp (65-68) if you need to finish)
-Crash to 30 degrees for a week or so, keg & hold at 30 for another couple weeks.
Stick with GM or continential malts, 90-min boil, low fermentation temp. and conditioning at freezing temp.
Changes i have in future brews:
- I've never used cologne (kolsch) malt
- 2565 v. K-II split batch.

Edit
Mash low at 149

 

[Broothru]

Thanks for the recipe.

I'm just beginning my deep dive into Kolsch. I can see already that what I thought I knew about Kolsch was comparatively little compared to what's 'out there'. So far I've gone back as far as 2011 on Kolsches I've brewed and archived, or copied and studied from various sources. Yours, as well as others posted in this thread, will be compiled and compared to see what I'll come up with, hopefully several test batches to evaluate what works best for me, and what I'll finally enter into competition.

My biggest challenge so far is sourcing the grains. My inventory spreadsheet shows that I have 18# of BestMalz Heidelberg, 45# of various Weyermann pilsners (Boh Pils, Barke and German Pilsener) and enough Vienna and/or Light Munich to get a head start as soon as this winter misery breaks. I'm hopeful that BSG and MoreBeer finally get restocked so I can order 'fresh' once I decide on a final recipe or two to brew for comps. I used up the last of my Weyermann Cologne last summer, and nobody seems to be selling or shipping online. My LHBS and friendly brewery have said they might be able to help me with an order, but it'll be pricey.

In the meantime I'll just wait for a break in the weather (i.e., Spring"), and brew a few pilot batches till I can settle on a final grist bill and order up a pound or two of fresh German hops. I'm getting pretty excited about this project, but at the same time hope that this doesn't become a rabbit hole of disappointment. I usually brew 12-15 beers every year, but seldom do the same one twice in a season. I hope I can find enough beer buddies to help in disposing of the inventory.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

order up a pound or two of fresh German hops.

You want to be really careful with central European hops at the moment - 2022 was a terrible year for the noble varieties, and 2023 wasn't great. I've not heard a final word on the 2024 crop but it was certainly looking like it would be a decent one. So hold out for 2024 if you can.

 

[Broothru]

Excellent point. I’ll have to keep an eye out for low AA%. The Hallertau I got last year (probably 2022 crop) was quite low, somewhere in the low 2~3% AA, as I recall. The aroma of the hops, and ultimately the finished beer, was nevertheless good. I usually bitter with Hall. Magnum, which also had low AA%, but I adjusted the amounts used to compensate for total desired IBUs.

I hadn’t previously considered it, but I wonder if the total oils content of the hops (responsible for flavor and aroma) are as adversely affected as the AA% content (responsible for bittering) due to the reduced output yields of the European hop bines?

Yet one more factor to account for in recipe planning: checking farnesene, humulene, caryophyllene, etc., values in addition to just AA%. Damned climate change!