What strains make up the "Whitbread" yeast?

[kmarkstevens]

Calling all English yeast meisters

Trying to zero in on what strains make up the Whitbread yeast. Probably no definitive answer unless Whitbread brewery or one of the brew masters has shared. But maybe can get to a ballpark. I'm mainly driven by seeing a lot of Shut Up Barclay recipes featuring Whitbread recipes that I want to try. Also, I picked up the WLP017 (Whitbread II) during the recent vault purge

As near as I can tell, these yeasts from the majors in no particular order are variously attributed as being one of the Whitbread strains:
WLP007 - maybe the "dry" or high sulfur strain
WLP017/WY1098 - are these the same strain? Suregork has them listed as a pair
WY1099

There is speculation that S-04 is one of the Whitbread strains. Bonus question if there is a definitive answer on the S-04 origin?

Bonus bonus question, is there a Whitbread bottle conditioned product that might have a representative mixed strain?

It may also make sense to split into:
1. modern era
2. between the wars
3. ~100 years ago
4. ~200 years ago (circa 1811 Whitbread Porter)​

Anyhoo, if this strikes your interest, open to facts, hearsay, opinions, experience and anything else that might shed light on this.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Of course, now I see in another thread that @Northern_Brewer states that: Conan being part of Whitbread family is well known from the genome sequencing data being collated on Suregork's site above.

 

[MyQuL]

I dont know about a bottle conditioned mixed thread but if your in the UK you can pick up some old(ish) beers from ebay that have yeast in them. I've seen bottle of whitbread beer from the 70's and 80's. I'm (slowly) culturing up the dregs from a bottle of Gales 1977 Jubilee ale. According to what I could find out the Gales strain is a Whitbread strain. I used to have some modern Gales that I cultured up from a bottle of HSB but I lost it. Unfortunately Fullers, who now own Gales no longer do HSB in bottles.
Wibblers will send out some brewery yeast for 3 quid - another whitbread derived strain which is supposed to be the source/very similar to Whitelabs Essex Ale yeast iirc