truth be told, a lot of you have much more experience with yeast varieties than me. while the recommended temps suggest one thing for many yeasts, homebrewers experience often says another thing.
any suggestions on an absolutely non-pastorianus (WLP has some “cream ale” yeast that is a mix of pastorianus and cerevisiae) yeast that can ferment between 50 to 60 well?
Well… first of all, it depends on your definition of “ale” or “non-pastorianus”. I’ll provide lots of options to cover all the bases:
You can try fermenting with any yeast at cold temperatures, if you want. I’ve done so with Belgian and Bavarian hefeweizen yeasts to mute their character a bit. If you try this, you should double the pitch rate, same as you would do for any lager. Makes sense, right?! And it works – in my experience, even the most characterful yeasts will tend to produce an astonishingly clean product if fermented in the mid 50s to 60 F. They’ll chug along slowly, but contrary to some beliefs, they WILL still ferment cold. Just very slowly.
US-05 and Nottingham are known by many, including myself, to work well in the mid 50s F, but interestingly, will also often produce more peachy esters at colder temperatures, so it’s something to be aware of.
And now for some science geek stuff:
WLP800 Pilsner “Lager” yeast is actually Saccharomyces cerevisiae which means it’s technically an “ale” yeast that performs well at cold temperatures. I’m sure people have used it at temperatures as cold as the 40s and low 50s F with great success. It is closely related to the WLP320 American Wheat and Wyeast 2565 Kolsch yeasts.
Same with WLP838 Southern German “Lager” which is technically an ale yeast that people use cold. I’ve not used this one yet, warm or cold. WLP838 is closely related to S-04, which might explain (at least in my own mind) why S-04 is so dang clean and sometimes seems to behave more like a lager yeast, even though it is indeed an ale yeast.
Conversely, WLP029 German/Kolsch “Ale” yeast is technically Saccharomyces pastorianus, and as such, should perform well at colder temperatures but also ferments fairly clean at warmer temperatures. I have not tried fermenting cold with this one yet but would like to experiment more with it.
Same story for WLP051 California V “Ale” yeast, it’s actually a lager yeast. Again, more experiments would be appropriate to see what it will do when fermented cold.
Play around! Experiment! Try something wacky! It will make beer! And maybe, even GREAT beer!
Cheers. 
What’s your goal? Ferment in a cold basement but still get some esters? Something else?
I always ferment WY1007 and WY1728 at 52F
Nottingham can go down to 50F — just as low as Diamond. Köln can go to 54F.
thanks guys. ive got the omega equivalent of WY1007 (OYL-006) right now as my upcoming brew. maybe i’ll try it at my garage temps.
why do i ask? i basically use my garage from mid fall to mid spring, which has good insulation and a huge concrete base that seems to hold temps really well - so it stays at a very stable ~55-60 ambient from december to march, then slowly rises from april on. I tried diamond lager, and while I like it, it really does have a distinctive lager taste, so i’m just wondering about ale potentials as I continue to hone in on what beers i can make that really please me.
i knew nottingham would come up for cold temps. sounds good.
WLP800 and WLP838 are interesting choices. i’ll have to read up on them further.
i’ve liked the taste profile description for WLP051 before, and I heard that it is pastorianus. That one is likely for me to try at some point.
I make a lot of Kolsch beers with WLP029. Ferments great around 62 F - 64 F. Age at least 3 weeks, more for a clean, almost lager like beer. I have temp control and can make lagers, but prefer Kolsch beers.
I like fermenting in the cellar because the temperature is more stable than upstairs. When I ferment ales in the winter I often put the fermenter on top f a pice of rigid insulation and a seedling heating mat and wrap it with a blanket. That buys m3 about six degrees or so.
I have seen US-05 ripping along at 44 degrees. Not sure if it would have finished at that temp but it was shocking to me.
All my kegs just kicked unexpectedly on Christmas Eve, so I’ll be brewing a few batches in the next few weeks to refill my stock. One of them will be a Vienna and corn based pale lager using a big pitch of Wyeast 1762 fermented in the mid 50s. Given my recent good luck with a low gravity bitter that came out quite clean, I have high hopes for this and I’m looking forward to see how it turns out.
is WLP028 truly equivalent or near-to Wy1728? I have almost no access to wyeast up here
edited: i accidentally thought it was 1728
I believe you are confusing Wyeast 1762 with 1728.
Wyeast 1762 is a Belgian yeast, supposedly “equivalent” to WLP540, which are supposedly the Rochefort strain.
If you are interested in a Scottish yeast, WLP028 and 1728 are in fact completely UNRELATED, no similarity at all whatsoever.
ok, yes i just assumed i think i read it wrong. lol again my unfamiliarity with wyeast. but yeah i believe i read somewhere that 1728 can ferment veyr low but wlp028 struggles at low temps
Nottingham dry yeast will ‘officially’ ferment down to 52 degrees F., which means it may go a bit lower.
As a stupid experiment I’ve gotten 1056 and US-05 into the upper 30’s F and they still fermented fine.
I love this.
Any idea about other “chico” strains like BRY-97?
I had same results with US-05. Mid 30’s/lower 40’s.
Haven’t experimented with WLP001.
Realize I mistyped in my original post in that I included WLP001.
A Siebel Institute graduate and the former head brewer at the Hofbrau, in Addison Texas, always used Wyeast 1056 for their house lagers. Not sure the ferment temp, but it was cold, probably around 50 F.
I’m looking more strongly at WLP800/838, wlp028 or nottingham. (all cerevisiae, not lagers)
I’m one of those nottingham haters from an awful experience, but that was very early on in my brewing and more than a decade ago. It’s also cheap and easy(dry yeast), so might give it a go.
at those who were suggesting S-05/WLP001 etc, so how did it attenuate at those sub 50 temps? Did you do a d-rest or bring the temp up later?
after reading a fair bit about these and other yeasts, i think a key thing missing in my initial query is the pitch rate. reading about people using these yeasts and others, if its the “right” yeast for a cold temp and its an insufficient pitch there will be problems. i would bet that many yeasts with a higher pitch rate (the lager “double” starter size or 2packs of dry) would do sufficiently well at cold temps.