AIPA yeast: Fruity Esters or Clean & Crisp?

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@The_Professor

Siebel Bry 97 (a.k.a. Ballantine “Ale Brewery” Strain, Anchor, Wyeast 1272, White Labs WLP051, and Lallemand Bry 97) has become my favorite non-British/non-European ale strain.  Brewtek CL-50 (a.k.a. Wyeast 1450) is a very close second (it’s probably the best strain for American red/amber ales on the planet).  Siebel Bry 96 (a.k.a. Ballantine “Beer Brewery” Strain, “Chico,” Wyeast 1056, White Labs WLP001, Fermentis Safale US-05, …) has become my least favorite ale strain.

Agree about Bry 97…it’s a great yeast and does  quite well in a wide variety of ale styles.  It’s worth noting however that it’s probably not entirely accurate to characterize it as a ‘non British’ strain.  While a number of American breweries have used it (and continue to use it)  it’s origins actually do lead back to the UK;  Some research has suggested that it may have been brought over to the USA by Ballantine for all of their ales when the brewery re-booted after Prohibition.
(Ballantine’s post-Prohibition  brewmaster was a Scotsman).

However, Siebel Bry 96 (a.k.a “Chico”) is also of English extraction, which makes neither strain truly American.  Siebel Bry 96 and Siebel Bry 97 are both Ballantine strains.  These strains are also part of the USDA-ARS NRRL Collection.

NRRL Y-7407 (Siebel Bry 96)
  Accession numbers in other collections: Lange 2
  Isolated from (substrate): BR, Beer pitching yeast
  Substrate location: Ballantine Brewery, New Jersey, USA
  Comments: ID from 26S renal partial sequences.

NRRL Y-7408 (Siebel Bry 97)
  Accession numbers in other collections: Lange 4
  Isolated from (substrate): BR, Ale pitching yeast
  Comments: ID from 26S rDNA partial sequences

With that said, an interesting factoid about Bry 96 is that it is a diploid yeast strain (2x16 chromosomes), which makes it fairly unique in the world of brewing yeast strains.  Most brewing strains are triploids (3x16 chromosomes) or tetraploids (4x16 chromosomes), usually with some level aneuploidy (a loss or an addition of chromosomes that makes the total number chromosomes not evenly divisible by 16).  I have another yeast strain in my bank that is a diploid S. cerevisiae strain.  It was used by the ACME Brewing Company in San Francisco to produce “beer.”  As ACME did not close during prohibition, this yeast strain is more than likely a very old.  The culture was deposited in the UC Davis Culture Collection long before Liebmann acquired ACME as part of their expansion into the West Coast.