WLP037 Yorksire Ale is leaving the vault

[ba-brewer]

So I got an email that my WLP037 is in the mail.

Anyone else have an order for WLP037 and what do you plan to brew with it?

I have been working on a strong bitters so I think that will be my first beer.

I have done some looking at post here on HBT and it looks like 2014 was not a good year for this yeast. I hope banana and clove is not a normal thing for WLP037. I seen one person have better results fermenting closer to 60 then using the recommended 65-70.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Some phenolics should be normal for it, given that it's a POF+ yeast - per my sig my current plan is a Motueka saison split between various Yorkshire yeasts - four out of WLP037, Stingo bottle dregs, 1469, Boltmaker cask dregs and Black Sheep cask dregs depending how happy the dregs are, I need to poke around my fridge... I also have a bottle of Wiper & True Cuvee des Simples which is a barrel-aged Yorkshire saison made with WLP037 - there's a reasonable amount of yeast in it but the actual beer is over a year old so not sure what viability will be like.

I have my vial of WLP037 in the fridge - one thing's certain, flocculation will not be a problem with this!

If you are going to go in a bitter direction then go Yorkshire - minimal crystal, well-mineralised liquor, BU:GU up around 0.8-0.9. And personally I wouldn't go too strong - anything over 4.5% ABV is a rarity in "traditional" British brewing these days.

 

[ba-brewer]

Thanks for the information @Northern_Brewer

My vial came today. I seen comments about the yeast getting curds so I was thinking cottage cheese but I had something almost the size of my thumb. It did remerge back with the rest of the yeast after a few hours in the fridge upright.

To stay under 4.5% that seems like something less than a strong bitter. I have a strong bitter now that is about ready to keg with 4% crystal and 8% invert sugar, maybe just drop the sugar. I see some people say they got higher than published attenuation with WLP037 so if I target 4.5% and it attenuate more I will end up with a strong bitter anyway.

If you plan to do a saison with WLP037 are you going to do anything to encourage POF+ behavior?

 

[Miraculix]

Interesting it is!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Yeah - but then strong bitter is not really a big thing in the UK, it exists far more in the minds of US breweries who are terrified of brewing anything with less alcohol than Budweiser. 4.5%-ish is the normal limit for cask beers outside the big cities, so strong bitters are too strong for the cask-led traditional brewers and too traditional for the more crafty guys who tend to brew to more USian ABVs.

Personally as someone who drinks a lot of British beer in its natural habitat, I think there's a real sweet-spot for bitter around 4.3%-ish, you just get that perfect balance between bittering, malt, alcohol, natural carbonation and yeast flavours. If you screw with the balance by force carbonating then maybe a bit of extra alcohol will help, but you're getting away from the sweet spot on two counts.

Depends what your recipe looks like, but I'd be tempted to just reduce the base malt a little, and then tweak the sugar based on flavour rather than trying to hit ABV.

In the first instance, I'm just going to ferment warm and see what happens - my suspicion is that they are not the most phenolic of POF+ yeasts so will probably need cuteness like ferulic rests to really develop the phenolic character but I want to establish a baseline first.

 

[ba-brewer]

Yeast on the stir plate, this has to weirdest yeast I have used so far. Yeast plooped out in a couple blobs, did not break up much on the stir plate at first (1st pic) . 2 hours in it looks like a bunch of small chunks, but on closer inspection some look like jelly doughnuts shaped disks. Had to speed up the spin as they were collecting near the bottom. I understand the curd thing now.



edit: looked at about 6hr past pitch big chunks gone but still in flocks and can see clear wort between the flocks

 

[Miraculix]

Yeast on the stir plate, this has to weirdest yeast I have used so far. Yeast plooped out in a couple blobs, did not break up much on the stir plate at first (1st pic) . 2 hours in it looks like a bunch of small chunks, but on closer inspection some look like jelly doughnuts shaped disks. Had to speed up the spin as they were collecting near the bottom. I understand the curd thing now.

View attachment 596673 View attachment 596674

Looks like kveik!

 

[ba-brewer]

Looks like kveik!

I have not used that yeast, but have looked at a few threads and blogs that discussed it. Seems like an interesting yeast, especially the orange ester part. The necklace thing they use to store the yeast traditionally is quite interesting too.

I had a diastaticus contamination a while back and never figures out if it was cross contamination or something wild so I have been very nervous of yeast with wild like character. I only got wlp037 because they cancelled the high pressure lager and I had to pick something else and I missed that it was on the diastaticus list. That contamination has messed with my enjoyment of phenolic yeasts so I really hope I can keep the phenols in check with wlp037.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I wouldn't sweat the diastaticus thing - with a quoted attenuation of 68-72 it looks like WLP037 has a broken STA1 gene that shows up on DNA tests (which is a prime concern of White Labs' lawyers right now) but it doesn't actually behave like a diastaticus.

And just based on my experience of British beers made with square yeasts, I'm more worried about my ability to coax enough phenolics out of it for my saison, than having too much phenolics in ordinary beer. Even in something like Harvey's Best, you have to look for it.

It's an interesting thought that it has a similar flocculation machinery to _some_ of the kveiks. Certainly in the tube it sets very quickly and that's just the kind of behaviour you'd want in a cask yeast.

 

[ba-brewer]

I took a whiff of the starter, it is very fruity, no banana maybe apple and there is a definite spiciness to the aroma, more peppery then clove. It is not the prominent aroma but it is there. The starter was at room temp which was probably the low 70s during the day (just a guess) and 68F overnight which I did measure.

I am only doing a half size batch so I tried to divided the starter and in the couple seconds it took to remove the foil and start pouring the yeast it dropped like a rock, almost nothing left in suspension. Did not get a 50/50 split for sure, maybe 90/10. I will give it another shot after I crash it as I don't really want to over pitch by that much. I am thinking about fermenting at the low end of the temp range maybe lower by a few degrees so pitching a bit heavy might be OK. I am thinking about starting at 62F and see how things go.

From the published attenuation range and even the posts I seen that they had higher attenuation I believe it was in the low 80s so your comment about a broken gene makes sense. For me it is more of a concern for troubleshooting just incase I get another contamination, my motivation is trying to eliminate variables/sources of cross contamination.

 

[ba-brewer]

In order to test the yeast I brewed a Golden Promise Target smash at 1044, full volume no sparge mashed at 150F and a single 60min addition for 35IBUs. With just a 60min bittering charge figuring any flavors and aromas should be mostly the yeast.

I did not mess with the starter it was very compacted and did not want to unfloc, so I probably did a pitch rate closer to a lager than an ale. Gave it a Liter of oxygen and set the chamber to 62F.
​

 

[EtchyLives]

I finally got mine in the mail. Will Brew up my standard ESB with this yeast and see how it compares.

That yeast floccing characteristic reminds me of Hornindal Kveik.

 

[ba-brewer]

My first batch has been fermenting for 8 days, it has gone from 1044 down to about 1012. The fermentor has been bubbling at a slow steady rate of about 7sec. for the last couple days. Cant see the top but I think the krausen has been gone for a few days but there is still yeast in suspension.

I started at 62F then upped to 65 after 3days of fermentation, it was 50% attenuated . Gave the fermentor a few swirls a days between days 3 and 6 to keep things moving. Upped temp to 68F yesterday(day7) hoping to get it to finish up.

 

[ba-brewer]

Finally kegged my bitters, 16days went 1044 to 1004 for 90%Atten. There was still some yeast in suspension but gravity was stable for a few days. Yeast cake slide out intact at first then a couple smaller pieces crumbled off. Beer smelled and tasted clovy.

 

[bierhaus15]

Beer smelled and tasted clovy.

That's typical for this yeast. Light clovey phenols that develops into a hazelnut-toasty character. Stopped using it for this reason, but some people like the flavor. I also find it can develop a slight tartness as the beer ages, similar to the Whitbreads.

 

[ba-brewer]

That's typical for this yeast. Light clovey phenols that develops into a hazelnut-toasty character. Stopped using it for this reason, but some people like the flavor. I also find it can develop a slight tartness as the beer ages, similar to the Whitbreads.

Thanks for the information and confirmation of the behavior. I seen some posts from around 2014 about clove and banana so I was not too surprised. I did taste my starter and thought I noticed maybe a bit of tartness so I am glad you mentioned that too.

I seen some people were able to tame the phenolics by fermenting at a lower temp but that did not seems to work for me. I made slants so I may try it again later but for now I will let this one age a bit to see how it comes out before brewing with again.

 

[ba-brewer]

Gave my wlp037 bitters a try, clovey aroma but the flavor seems a bit more black pepper spicy than clove like. I don't get any funk just clean flavors and aroma. I ended pretty close to 1004 but the beer does not seem watery(~2 volumes co2). Beer cleared nicely for 18days in the keg. Not as disappointed as I thought I would be. The yeast seems a bit like a cross between WY3711 and WY3522, but a bit cleaner.

 

[MeridianCraftBrewing]

Brewed a house American Amber on 11/25/2018 with the wlp037 that recenty left the vault (see recipe below). This is a tried and true recipe that I have won multiple BJCP homebrew contests with using Chico strain and London Ale III. This was the 6th batch of this recipe.

Made an appropriate starter and oxygenated thoroughly to approx 10-12ppm O2. Fermented at 67F and naturally rose to 70F on day 4. Diacetyl rest @ 70F for 5 days (I read the data sheets on White Labs taproom website that showed higher levels of potential daicetyl so I wanted to be safe). I use temp controlled fermenters with thermowells installed to ensure accurate temps to within +/- 1F. Big, chunky yeast that looked like curds zipping around. Heavy pear/spice/clove-like esters that remined me more of a Belgian-esque strain than an English. Dropped like a brick with cold crash and created a thick pancake that could be peeled up in one piece at the bottom of the fermenter.

Target OG was 1.060 with expected attenuation of 73% for FG of 1.014 @ 5.6%ABV. Actual attenuation was 82.6% for FG of 1.010 @ 6.6%ABV! Wort into boil kettle was pH 5.4, wort into fermenter was pH 5.25. Finished pH of 4.45. Other yeasts I typically use with this recipe finish @ pH of 4.6ish. Didn't expect that!

Kegged and fined it yesterday. Initial tasting was totally unexpected given its description on White Labs site. Mildly tart with saison-like esters. Pear, mild pepper and clove, with a pleasant and complex undertone of dark fruit. It certainly makes a complex beer, but I'm not sure if this batch would qualify as an American Amber now given the amount of esters on the nose and palate. May tame with cold-conditioning. Would probably pass as a standard strength, pale Saison. I'll probably enter it in both categories to see how it does. This yeast really brings out the earthy, spicy, and grapefruit notes of hops. It highlighted the lemongrass undertones of Hallertau Blanc beautifully, and the bitter grapefruit characteristics of Cascade. It put the Nugget addition on steroids, highlighting a rich herbal note semi-reminiscent of a strong tea.

The yeast seems to mask the Caramel Malt in the recipe, which is surprising given how much I use. Victory toast is there but not as prominent as expected. It seems to highlight the darker, fruit-forward malts like Special B. If I used any more Special B than I did it would have probably been overpowering.

Overall a very complex yeast that seems to highlight the earthy, herbal, and floral aspects of hops. I didn't get the complex malt characteristics described by White Labs. This will be a fun yeast to experiment with, but I have a feeling it will be temperamental and will take a lot of fine tuning to find a sweet-spot. Will definitely be brewing a Saison with this next using a saved slant.

Will continue to update as the beer matures. Cheers!

Recipe:

Mash 60min @ 152
Boil 60min
SRM 12

Pale standard 2-row: 80%
Caramel 40: 9%
Victory: 4%
Torrified Wheat: 4%
Special B: 2.5%
Black patent: .5%

Nugget @ 60min +10IBU
Hallertau Blanc @ 20 +10IBU
Nugget @ 10min +7IBU
Cascade @ 3min +2IBU
Hallertau Blanc @ 3min +4IBU

 

[ba-brewer]

@MeridianCraftBrewing, thanks for posting your experience.

I forgot about the tasting room database so after reading your post I took a look at the database. Looked like they mostly brewed darker beers and all but one of the 5 listed finished with ~85% attenuation.

I was nervous about banana esters so I started fermenting low, glad to hear you got pear and not banana at a higher temp. I started low but when I was smelling plenty of phenols I did end up increasing the temp later to encourage the yeast to do a clean up.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

People may be interested in this thread featuring 037 on Jim's, attempting to replicate some of the rousing you get in a square :

I brewed it a couple weeks ago and it was ready for packaging last night, pretty bright and tasted amazing. Unlike some reports for WLP037, yery, very subtle phenolic character that blends nicely with the hops to add some interesting complexity. Quick, strong fermentation and very flocculant. I needed a 19L keg, a 9L keg plus 6 x 500ml bottles. All from one 30L FV (about 35L occupying the headspace) and a diluted 23L batch of wort. I just scaled the recipe and held back on the water I couldn't fit in the boil. The yeast trough extends the FV's capacity

More importantly, I think it's one of the nicest bitters I've ever made. Not a million miles from Harvey's Best Bitter.

I repitched some of the yeast harvested from the trough into a porter, which has turned out very nice too.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Just as a heads-up, I see WLP037 is in production again according to yeastman.com

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I wish they would improve the vault. There are some yeast there that I would want to try, but I am not that keen of paying for 1 packet to ship from across the country on some random day during some random weather. I see that the shipping cost is $9.50 per strain.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Yep, the "traditional" Vault is a bit of a waste of time apart from a handful of the most popular strains. But at least they're getting better at releasing some at random, presumably they do some homebrew packs when they get them out of the freezer to grow up a commercial-size pitch.

Annoyingly you can't deeplink, but if you go to www.yeastman.com and then click on "Yeast Strains" and then the "Stores" on the navbar, then scroll to the bottom of the page or click "Vault Strains", you can see what Vault strains are currently available to retailers, so you can either ask your retailer to get them or (I think?) order them direct.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

As a heads-up, WLP037 is due as a Q3 seasonal release in July :
https://www.whitelabs.com/the_vault?id=60
January - March
WLP091 Best Coast Hazy Ale Yeast Blend
WLP640 Brettanomyces anomalus
WLP835 German X Lager Yeast
April - June
WLP561 Non STA1son Ale Yeast
WLP603 Torulaspora delbrueckii
WLP815 Belgian Lager Yeast
July - September
WLP037 Yorkshire Square Ale Yeast
WLP520 Sigmund Kveik Ale Yeast
WLP631 Appalachian Tart
October - December
WLP009 Australian Ale Yeast
WLP519 Stranda Kveik Ale Yeast
WLP665 Flemish Ale Blend