I am trying to help my friend/LHBS owner develop a ‘regular stock’ list of yeasts - he’s been getting too much of too many unique use yeasts that wind up getting old and expiring, so I offered to help put together a listing of about 10 to cover most of the bases. He is still going to offer custom orders for what he doesn’t regularly carry.
What do you think? (He wants to stick to WL) I am particularly interested in thoughts on the Belgians - I don’t brew those, so I am only going on what I perceive you guys use.
001 Cali
002 English Ale
007 Dry English Ale
028 Scottish
380 Hefe IV
400 Witbier
500 Trappist Ale
570 Golden Ale
830 German Lager
833 German Bock Lager
I think it’s a good basic selection. You might want to add the Irish yeast to the list. You can make almost any style with what you have listed. But it sort of depends on the area and what his customers want.
In my club, the 500 and the 550 strains seemed to do well in this year’s intraclub Belgian Ale competition.
My understanding is that the first-place winning pale ale and dubbel both used the 550 strain.
WL500 = Chimay (WY1214), WL530 = Westmalle (WY3787), and WL550 = Achouffe (WY3522) yeast strains respectively.