What is your favorite IPA yeast besides...

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
My favourites are WLP023 and Wyeast 1028. (Both for English IPA's)
The 023 gives a unique flavour which I love.
Please excuse my spelling, but I've never used either of them for an American IPA.

-a.
1028 is awesome and one of the English strains I’ve used the most - but I find it works best in darker beers like porters and stouts, maybe mild. I think Wyeast’s site shows this if you look under that strain at the styles they recommend it for. Under Strong Bitter and English IPA, 1099 is their first recommendation. 1099 is also a great yeast.
 
If I'm not trying to impart flavor contribution from yeast I love US-05 for its cost and ease of use. Its vigorous not pickey about temp and finishes perfectly every time. For my NEIPA my hands down favorite is absolutely Imperial A38 "Juice" I have brewed the same neipa recipe with many different strains and nothing compared to A38! Love it!
 
I like the Wyeast 1272 over the 1056 because it drops clear better. This is my go to. I also use the Omega west coast ale, and the Imperial House and Flagship strains with good success. This is for American IPAs and I tend to ferment at the lower end of the temperature range. I look back at my notes and don’t find great success with WLP001 for some reason.
 
I've used K-97 and S-33 for both West Coast/Red IPAs, Black IPAs and hazy IPAs, and Verdant for West Coast IPAs, Bitters, Reds, Brown, Imperial Stout. Verdant will also work in hazy IPAs very well.

S-33 is an English yeast and although attenuates and flocculates less than desirable, it makes very good beer. K-97 is also an example of maybe an overlooked dry yeast. Versatile, good attenuation - can clear up if cold crashed or fined.

To further confuse the issue, K-97 and BRY97 are said to behave the same. Are they the same yeast known by different names by different yeast propagators? Possibly. Likely? Don't know, not my area of expertise. Just reporting what others have opined, stated as fact (internet rumor), and/or actually done real research. Another speculation: WLP-090 may be the liquid version of K-97/BRY97, which is possibly the "Chico 3" variant.

At the end of the day, the tiny nuances between WLP-001, Wyeast 1056, BRY97 and all the descendants are likely indistinguishable without a gene sequencer. They are all so called West Coast Ale yeasts and all do pretty much the same thing. That's not to say that yeast differences between Chico 1 or 2 or 3 (if they exist) doesn't matter. Rather the uniqueness between Stone Pale Ale, SNPA, and Ballast Point has less to do with a yeast variant descended from the Seibel Institute sample 50 years ago in the finished beer, than other factors specific to the brewery, its sourcing of ingredients and its processes.
 
If you're talking about the recent Chico paper from the Dunham lab that is discussed here, it's a preprint and not yet peer-reviewed :
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...f-white-labs-yeast.642831/page-2#post-8916547
Although initial sequencing of BRY-97 put it in the mixed group close to Windsor/S-33, current rumour is that was a mistake and subsequent sequencing suggests it's another "improved" descendant of BRY-96 like WLP090 etc.

That wasn't the paper I was referring to, though I am familiar with Durham lab Chico study you referenced. Interesting work, and wish I had the academic creds to fully interpret it. I'll try to find the paper I was reading. I think I may have saved it to Documents, and I'll link it if/when I locate it. Thanks for posting the Steven Dresler remarks. It helps complete the circle of where some of the "mother" yeasts of American craft brewing originated. Good to have reliable first hand sources.
 
He does go into the topic in Beyond the Pale in some depth, however it is some time since I read the book so my recollection isn't clear enough to speak with confidence here. Highly recommend the book, though.
They're open about it originally coming from the Siebel Institute in Chicago originally, there's interviews online if you can be bothered to dig through them eg
this with Stephen Dresler :

Thank you both!
For a mere $6, I now have a used copy of Ken's book on the way to me, AND I get to support a Goodwill store! Cool! ((Sidenote- did y'all know Amazon sells used books? lol))

I will have to listen to that podcast.... Simply amazing how the yeast take on their own generation. So cool. Yeast is the #1 under-discussed part of beer making IMO. How many local craft breweries use 1 or 2 strains. Probably for cost.

Thanks all!
 
For a mere $6, I now have a used copy of Ken's book on the way to me, AND I get to support a Goodwill store! Cool! ((Sidenote- did y'all know Amazon sells used books? lol))
I think the book is a treasure. A time capsule perfectly capturing the early craft beer movement in the US, and the magic of entrepreneurial spirit - hope you enjoy it!
 
If you're talking about the recent Chico paper from the Dunham lab that is discussed here, it's a preprint and not yet peer-reviewed :
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...f-white-labs-yeast.642831/page-2#post-8916547

"Upon further review..." as the referees would say: indeed the primary source for my musings on Chico derivations was the Durham lab paper you cited. I conflated those data with another work on brewing yeast genetic sequencing which was not well footnoted or documented, which however stated many of the same conclusions on Chico. The lack of rigorous documentation damages those conclusions, making them appear to be perpetuated internet musings. OTOH the Durham study presents some interesting findings which hopefully will stand up to peer scrutiny.
 
Back
Top