Searching for Historic Lager Strains

[Lampadius]

Salutations!

As a homebrewer obsessed with traditional brewing methods, my goal has been to create a product that embodies and celebrates historical authenticity in every conceivable aspect. From malting heritage grains and growing heritage hops to wild ferments, brewing beer with superheated stones, and spending eight hours turbid mashing—if it’s old, inefficient, and ridiculously outdated, I have probably tried it. I have encountered challenges in sourcing yeast strains that truly resonate with my vision of an authentic early 20th-century lager. My aim is to utilize machinery, ingredients, and processes that reflect both precision and tradition, allowing me to achieve the artistry of brewing while finding joy in this asinine pursuit. While I have successfully acquired the necessary equipment and ingredients through a long process of trial and error, I am now in search of an authentic old-school lager yeast culture. Although modern lager strains are wonderful, I am quite obstinate and set in my ways—especially when it comes to brewing beer. I would greatly appreciate any leads or connections anyone might have regarding the availability of antique lager yeast cultures, as well as a way on how I might facilitate their purchase. And when I say "antique," I mean OLD. If at all possible, I am referring to cultures from around the end of Prohibition (or European cultures from that period) to the early 1950s. Anything older would be greatly appreciated, but I’m sure anything more antiquated is just a pipe dream

 

[Lampadius]

Bump. Apologies

 

[dmtaylor]

Welcome to the forum!

There are yeast banks out there at universities and laboratories, etc., which I confess I don't know much about -- somebody out there will give you more info if you need it. These might have preserved old strains from the early 1900s if resurrection of authentic old stuff is what you're after.

But what I *can* tell you is that out of many commercially available yeasts, there are very few which have the oldest DNA or least common DNA to all other commercial strains, but should be useful as being "old" or "traditional" strains if that will suffice. These include:

WLP820 = very traditional German lager strain with the oldest DNA available commercially

and

WLP1983 or Wyeast 2007 = sister lager strains originating from Czechvar (i.e., the original "Budweiser") from Czech Republic -- the WLP1983 in particular was a favorite strain of Charlie Papazian which he propagated as his own house yeast strain from a fresh keg of imported Czechvar lager

Sources: genetic testing by Langdon et al. and summarized in Oct 2019 update and chart by "Suregork" (Kristoffer Krogerus) at following link

https://beer.suregork.com/?p=4112

Have fun. Yeast fascinates me too, obviously. Another shameless link IF interested:

http://tinyurl.com/yeastmaster

 

[dmtaylor]

Bump. Apologies

Don't worry. There are enough people interested who will show up within the next 6 or 8 hours, I can almost guarantee you that.

 

[Witherby]

Welcome to the forum!

There are yeast banks out there at universities and laboratories, etc., which I confess I don't know much about -- somebody out there will give you more info if you need it. These might have preserved old strains from the early 1900s if resurrection of authentic old stuff is what you're after.

But what I *can* tell you is that out of many commercially available yeasts, there are very few which have the oldest DNA or least common DNA to all other commercial strains, but should be useful as being "old" or "traditional" strains if that will suffice. These include:

WLP820 = very traditional German lager strain with the oldest DNA available commercially

WLP820 is what Andreas Krennmair recommends for a 19th century Vienna Lager is his Vienna Lager book because of its lower attenuation.
https://beerandbrewing.com/recipe-andreas-krenmairs-traditional-1870s-vienna-lager/

If you look at Ron Pattinson’s various charts of 19th c lager styles, many of them have low attenuation:
http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/lager19.htm

TUM 35, available from Jasper yeast, is a recently rediscovered yeast that went out of use in the 1950s:
https://www.jasperyeast.com/yeasts/21-franconian-lager

https://www.researchgate.net/public...lager_strain_Saccharomyces_pastorianus_TUM_35

Let us know what you find. I’m personally interested in Winterbier/Sommerbier and the history of Kellerbier:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/articles/8963/winter-beer-and-summer-beer/

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2010/04/winterbier-sommerbier-part-three.html?m=1

 

[hotbeer]

And when I say "antique," I mean OLD. If at all possible, I am referring to cultures from around the end of Prohibition (or European cultures from that period) to the early 1950s. Anything older would be greatly appreciated, but I’m sure anything more antiquated is just a pipe dream

That doesn't seem too old!

 

[bwible]

I know the Wyeast 2035 American Lager yeast is an old one and they recommend that one for pre-pro lagers. This yeast was renamed some time ago, its referenced in older books and articles as “New Ulm” yeast. Indicating the source is probably August Schell? Wyeast made this a limited release strain, part of their “PC - Private Collection.” Its not that hard to get though - they released it twice in the past 2 years.

Another one of their strains is supposed to be the Christian Schmidt strain. 2272? I’m not positive on that one, maybe somebody else knows? I think that one is also Private Collection and limited availability now.

The 2000-PC Budvar somebody mentioned earlier is available from Wyeast this quarter now.

 

[dmtaylor]

@bwible, that's a great point. If 2035 truly is from Schell's, as originally touted by Kristen England, then with Schell's being the second oldest brewery in the USA, this seems to be a great option for duplicating lagers from ~100 years ago.

Incidentally, another very popular strain that is genetically almost identical to the 2035 is... W-34/70. Which makes sense when thinking about really old strains. W-34/70 is often said to be among the oldest still around today, though personally I have my doubts as to how the dried version actually compares with a banked slant, e.g., I'm willing to bet that split batches from an actual banked slant vs. today's "W-34/70" are probably going to taste quite different because the drying process "does stuff" to yeast. But this is only my own wild ass guess.

 

[Lampadius]

@bwible, that's a great point. If 2035 truly is from Schell's, as originally touted by Kristen England, then with Schell's being the second oldest brewery in the USA, this seems to be a great option for duplicating lagers from ~100 years ago.

Incidentally, another very popular strain that is genetically almost identical to the 2035 is... W-34/70. Which makes sense when thinking about really old strains. W-34/70 is often said to be among the oldest still around today, though personally I have my doubts as to how the dried version actually compares with a banked slant, e.g., I'm willing to bet that split batches from an actual banked slant vs. today's "W-34/70" are probably going to taste quite different because the drying process "does stuff" to yeast. But this is only my own wild ass guess.

Because nothing screams old and antiquated like 34/70!

 

[bwible]

Wyeast was one of the first yeast companies back in the day to offer liquid yeast. Their big selling point was “hey, homebrewers! Look! You can now make your beer with the same yeast the professional breweries use!”

I believe they wanted homebrewers to know what brewery the yeast came from without saying the name of the brewery, for legal reasons or whatever. They tried obvious ways to tell people. They had a yeast they called “chico ale yeast.” There was one big brewery in Chico, CA - Sierra Nevada. They had another yeast called “Rocky Mountain Lager Yeast.” This one was “New Ulm yeast”. They came out with “Canadian / Belgian Ale yeast”. They have changed the names on several of these but thats the idea. White Labs had East Coast Ale yeast which was supposedy Sam Adams yeast. Wyeast outright calls 2 of their yeasts Pilsner Urquell H strain and Budvar.

There is/was something to these names.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

And when I say "antique," I mean OLD. If at all possible, I am referring to cultures from around the end of Prohibition (or European cultures from that period) to the early 1950s. Anything older would be greatly appreciated, but I’m sure anything more antiquated is just a pipe dream

Thing is, lager yeast just isn't that diverse and appears not to have changed too much since the 19th century when the likes of Hansen started banking it. So of all the variables, it's one I would sweat least about.

But FWIW Carlsberg did harvest yeast from 1883 and brewed a beer with it - I had some, it didn't seem that much different from memory....

https://www.carlsberggroup.com/pursuit-of-better/scientific-discoveries/1883-rebrew/

 

[bwible]

Thing is, lager yeast just isn't that diverse and appears not to have changed too much since the 19th century when the likes of Hansen started banking it. So of all the variables, it's one I would sweat least about.

But FWIW Carlsberg did harvest yeast from 1883 and brewed a beer with it - I had some, it didn't seem that much different from memory....

https://www.carlsberggroup.com/pursuit-of-better/scientific-discoveries/1883-rebrew/

That looks interesting enough and I have an armchair interest in historical beers. I have a pre-pro lager that is in the lagering stage now. Its something I would probably at least try once if I saw it. Meta says its available in the US but nobody near me including the giant Total Wine seems to have it.

It shows up as an amber or copper colored lager though, and that makes me wonder. All accounts say that by 1883, light colored lagers were well established. So why did they decide to make this one some kind of throwback amber lager? It could be pulled from one of the brewery’s historic recipes. Or one has to wonder how much of this is marketing and positioning.

We’ve seen others. Here we had a beer called Midas Touch made by a somewhat local brewery to me - Dogfish. “This sweet yet dry beer is made with ingredients found in 2,700-year-old drinking vessels from the tomb of King Midas. Somewhere between beer, wine and mead, Midas will please the chardonnay and beer drinker alike.” I tried one, recall not liking it. I appreciate what they were trying to do. It just wasn’t for me. I can only gather it wasn’t very popular as they haven’t made it for a long time.

Didn’t somebody also come up with one suppoedly made from one of those ancient recovered bottles of ipa that supposedly sank somewhere? I think there were a few of these kinds of attempts.

 

[monkeymath]

I've found both the original post and the thread that developed from it very interesting. However, I must admit it still don't fully understand what it is that you actually want.

What is it that you actually expect the yeast to bring to the table here? You sure won't taste the beer and say "ahhhh, now that's a yeast strain that has been banked a long time ago!". As in, this is just not something you could taste, but only something in your head.
If I understand correctly, what you want is to create a beer that tastes similar to how lager beers at a certain historical reference point (might have) tasted like. So I think it'd be helpful to start there and work our way from there instead of looking at "manufacturing dates". So what should the final beer taste like?

 

[bwible]

I've found both the original post and the thread that developed from it very interesting. However, I must admit it still don't fully understand what it is that you actually want.

What is it that you actually expect the yeast to bring to the table here? You sure won't taste the beer and say "ahhhh, now that's a yeast strain that has been banked a long time ago!". As in, this is just not something you could taste, but only something in your head.
If I understand correctly, what you want is to create a beer that tastes similar to how lager beers at a certain historical reference point (might have) tasted like. So I think it'd be helpful to start there and work our way from there instead of looking at "manufacturing dates". So what should the final beer taste like?

This. Unless we can find some written text documenting what beer actually tasted like back then how would we ever know?

We have George Fix’s work on Pre-Prohibition lager:

https://www.morebeer.com/articles/P...m_GDgpIIu_yiUjn8i0oNjeuQavsFaIPPelJxXE5iydtgi

We have some articles like this talking about beers made in New York from about 1950 to 1970 and how they were hoppier and different:

https://www.morebeer.com/articles/T...jueuYjkWyxJUn5qaLa7FQkzEoZ05xTWh6E4rusPYneBSc

What I don’t think any of these talk about is barrels. Barrels were the container of that period and were used for shipping everything from nails to fish to beer. We have old pictures of beer trucks laden with what look like wood barrels. Everybody’s heard the song “roll out the barrel.” So would wood have been some component of the flavor of these old beers?

Modern refrigeration wasn’t a thing - even watching old episodes of the Three Stooges from the 1940s we see shows with ice and ice trucks as people still had “ice boxes” that required ice delivery every day.

What we know of the origins of lager beer was that it was originally only brewed during the cold months and stored in underground caves through the warm months. Temperatures had to fluccuate, so what effect would that have?

Then there are people who say exactly what you’re saying:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/articles/4381/pre-prohibition-lager-more-nostalgic-than-authentic/

 

[Witherby]

This. Unless we can find some written text documenting what beer actually tasted like back then how would we ever know?

Here are descriptions of specific beers (mostly in Germany) in 1900. Note the nuances between styles that accompany this chart showing beer glassware and color:
https://www.beeretseq.com/iconic-beers-in-flying-colours/
https://www.beeretseq.com/tabular-data-for-the-pre-ww-i-colour-plate-of-beers/
https://www.beeretseq.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/IMG_20180723_1352596-1.jpg

Here are the descriptions that accompany the drawing. I read German, but maybe one of our German speakers can provide a more nuanced translation):

Pilsener (Erste Pilsener Aktienbrauerei, Pilsen).......................... Feines hopfenaroma

Pilsener Urquell (Bürgerliches Brauhaus, Pilsen)........................ Feines hopfenaroma

Wiener Märzenbier (A Dreher, Klein-Schwechat)....................... Kräftiges Bitter, voll

Lichtenhainer (Lichtehain, Thüringen)....................................... Rauchig, säuerlich

Gose (Döllnitz bei Leipzig)......................................................... Sauer, schwach salzig

Dortmunder Union (Dortmund)................................................ Voll, kräftig bitter, hart

Fürstenbergbräu (Donaueschingen).......................................... Änlich dem Pilsener, ein wenig härter

Hochschulbräu (Veruchs- und Lehrbrauerei, Berlin)................... Änlich dem Pilsener, ein wenig härter

Märzenbier (Schultheißbrauerei, Berlin).................................... Hart, bitter

Berliner Weißbier (Berlin)......................................................... Säuerlich, prickelnd

Grätzer (Grätz in Polen)............................................................ Rauchig, prickelnd

Lagerbier (Haasebrauerei, Breslau)........................................... Voll, malzig

Pale Ale (Baß & Co., England) ....................................Eigenartig bitter, weinig

Siechen (Nürnberg).................................................................. Voll, röstig-aromatisch

Braunschweiger Schiffsmumme (Braunschweig)........................ Malzextrakt ähnlich

Kulmbacher Sandlerbräu (Kulmbach)........................................ Voll, sußlich, süffig

Tucher (Nürnberg)................................................................... Röstig, malzig

Pschorr (München), Hofbräu (München), Weihenstephan (Freising bei München), Spaten (München)
Die Münchener Biere schmecken voll, malzaromatisch und rund, differieren aber unter sich sowohl in der Farbe als auch in Geshmack merkbar deutlich

Porter (Barclay, Perkins & Co., England).................................... Eigenartiges u. starkes Bitter, voll

Braunbier................................................................................ Prickelnd, erfrischend, leicht

 

[Witherby]

What I don’t think any of these talk about is barrels. Barrels were the container of that period and were used for shipping everything from nails to fish to beer. We have old pictures of beer trucks laden with what look like wood barrels. Everybody’s heard the song “roll out the barrel.” So would wood have been some component of the flavor of these old beers?

Modern refrigeration wasn’t a thing - even watching old episodes of the Three Stooges from the 1940s we see shows with ice and ice trucks as people still had “ice boxes” that required ice delivery every day.

What we know of the origins of lager beer was that it was originally only brewed during the cold months and stored in underground caves through the warm months. Temperatures had to fluccuate, so what effect would that have?

Then there are people who say exactly what you’re saying:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/articles/4381/pre-prohibition-lager-more-nostalgic-than-authentic/

All of the wooden casks, barrels, Holzfaß, etc. would have been pitch lined in the continental European brewing tradition. In the UK they were not pitch lined, but the goal was to use neutral barrels so as not to get the flavor of the wood. Wood aged beer for the sake of the wood flavor is a very modern thing.

To learn more about pitch lining, see here:
https://sites.google.com/site/jesskiddenparttwo/home/pitch?authuser=0

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Gary Gilman has written extensively on historical barrel use :
https://www.beeretseq.com/?s=oak

eg here : https://www.beeretseq.com/pitched-lager/

American oak was preferred for dark beers in the British Isles, more neutral Memel oak from the Baltic was preferred for pale ones. On the Continent barrels were commonly pitched (or used a wax/pitch mix that was more neutral).

 

[Bramling Cross]

Here's a thread about TUM 35/Jasper's Franconian Lager. I pitched that strain over three batches last Spring and recorded my results in that thread. Disregard the first pitch, it was more a test of Jasper's generous packaging than anything else.

Like you, I'm very interested in antiquated yeast strains so I was eager to give it a go. In summary, I found that TUM 35 made a very agreeable lager that finished soft and round while exhibiting a TG on the higher end of the spectrum.

It's an excellent strain that makes nice lagers. Ultimately, I chose to terminate that line of beers because, while I'm interested in antiquated strains and techniques, that interest is tempered by practical considerations. In the end, its technical properties didn't outshine its contributions to the finished beer. I would like to revisit the strain in the future, but with the prospect of a hot, muggy Mid-Atlantic summer looming, I wasn't interested in futzing around learning a new stain at a time when I needed to start racking some bone dry lagers for summer consumption.

With cooler weather ahead, I've given some thought to renewing my exploration of the Franconian strain, but I keep balking at the notion because S-189 covers the same territory and it requires zero effort.

I hope you found this useful.