Had some Nottingham lying around, and managed to take this macro photograph with my iPhone. Looks quite different from either the lighter or darker granules in terms of shape. Either they would do something special to them during repackaging/mixing to change that, but I doubt it.
Here is W-34/70
And W-34/70 (top), Nottingham (bottom). (There is grain of Nottingham that fell on the top left of W-34/70.) Neither of these look much like the M54.
Revisiting the Mauribrew track for M54: It could be a mix of Mauribrew Ale 514 and Mauribrew Lager 497, both known to ferment relatively cleanly at 18–20. Cooper’s used to mix their Cooper’s Ale Yeast with their “lager” yeast in a lot of kits, so it’s a tried and true combination. There’s some strong indications that these two yeasts are exactly 514 and 497. If 514 was M10 workhorse and 497 is M84, as it seems, it was also rather trivial for MJ to introduce this combination. If I can get my hands on some M84 I can check out the grains and see if they match those from M54.
The plot thickens. I managed to get hold of some M84 and M76. Here they are next to each other together with Nottingham and W-34/70. My tentative observations:
- M76 is a mix, as suspected. I have separated the grains of different color with a tweezer, the lighter ones are rounder while the darker are more rodlike.
- The lighter grains of M76 look suspiciously like the ones of M84.
- None of the grains in M76 look anything like Nottingham (which are much smaller)
- The darker grains of M76 are similar in shape as W-34/70 but different in color.
- M84 looks similar to the light grains of M54 in the image a few posts up.
Would be nice to get hold of some Diamond for comparison, but here are my takeaways so far:
- M76 doesn’t contain Nottingham. The cerevisiae part is most likely the same as M84 (suspected Mauribrew Lager 497).
- The lighter grains of M54 are likely the same as M84.
- Given that Mauribrew didn’t offer any pastorianus, this likely means that MJ mixes yeasts from different manufacturers. This opens up a lot more possibilities.
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The plot thickens even further… I got a delivery of yeast, and here’s how they look. My observations and thoughts below. I thought I would confirm some hypotheses but instead I am even more confused.
- M76 is consistent with M84 + Diamond. Diamond has two types of grains shapes. These are also present in BRY-97, so I wouldn’t take it as an indication of a mix.
- Brewferm Lager seems different than M84, which is supposedly Mauribrew Lager 479. If anything it looks like Nottingham, which would actually be a plausible option.
- Nottingham doesn’t really look like M42 at all. Maybe they have different factories with different shapes (although all my Lallemand is listed as products of Austria)?
- M44 is consistent with BRY-97, although they have different color that might be due to being from different batches.
- M15 and Windsor don’t really look the same either. M15 has the same look as BRY-97, M42 and Diamond though so might be another batch/machine for the Windsor?
- M36 gives no indication of being a mix at all and doesn’t look anything like M15 or M42.
Some pairings that could plausibly be considered are:
- Mauribrew Draught for M42? Matches roughly for attenuation, recommended temperature range and flocculation.
- S-04 for M36?
Now I have some beer to brew with all these yeasts…
Overview
Close-up around M76
Close-up around M42 and M44
Close-up around M15 and M36
M36
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I’m sticking with M42 being Nottingham. Even though they look different, I have it from a very reliable source that these two are one and the same. Maybe Lallemand has multiple production facilities or equipment lines that put out different shapes sizes such that the MJ looks different from the Lallemand. We’ll never know. Same could go for M15 and Windsor. I’m not entirely convinced yet that appearance can prove anything one way or the other.
The M36 question continues to fascinate me though. As stated on another forum linked below… Everything old is new again…
I have a new old theory. M36 might just be… S-04. At least, until I’m proven wrong again. 
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/mj-m36-liberty-bell-which-strain.698346/page-2#post-10468550
Yeah, agreed regarding M42 and M15. Lallemand actually have a list of their plants. 20 plants in total, and I think all my yeast has been from Vienna. This Nottingham is marked as coming from Denmark, so should be a different plant. They have a nice video explaining the process. I would assume that variation in equipment at these different sites would give rise to differences in the yeast appearance. On the other hand, I don’t think MJ would have their own unique production line, so their yeast should match in appearance to at least one of the Lallemand plants.
It has been discussed before elsewhere, but there’s an interesting interview with a “resident brewer” at MJ. Some quotes below.
On M36: “Is this something else that we do find from other companies, or is it something unique to you guys?”
“So the Liberty Bell is one that was a bit more unique to us.”
Would point more towards Mauribrew Draught rather than S-04 (could hardly be called unique at all)
On M44: “The one thing I will say, and I’ll just spearhead this one straight off the bat, is that the West Coast Ale yeast, it does have a longer lag time than either of those strains. (comparing to White Labs and Wyeast)”
Consistent with M44 being BRY-97 rather than US-05.
"when we do have blends, we are looking for strains that are very closely related, so have very, very similar flocculation and attenuation and that kind of thing. So when you are just harvesting and taking your healthy harvest, it will be in the same proportion as what we intended to be.”
Would point against co-pitching something like Windsor + Nottingham.
On M47: “The Abbey, I will say, was modeled to go towards the Chimay strain. That is the closest comparison here.”
Consistent with M47 being Lallemand Abbaye.
On M10: “It was a blend. And what happened was that that strain was starting to become sort of less and less stable. So what actually happened was that it ended up morphing with the new, what, it’s become the New World Strong Ale. Pretty much. If you are a fan of that workhorse strain, then the New World Strong Ale is 99% that strain.”
This is a bit of a bizarre statement, but indicates that M42 (Nottingham?) was part of M10 workhorse. It’s rather odd as that yeast had a listed flocculation and compaction of 3/5 vs. 5/5 for M42. Maybe they changed the mix percentages over time.
On M03: "It was kind of based on a Fuller’s strain, and that one as well, like the New World Strong Ale became the Empire Ale Yeast. So that new strain, again, has come into and become that Empire Ale Yeast. … And I pitted against the Liberty, the M36, the Empire Ale Yeast, and then I took a classic Fuller’s Strain style ESB Yeast and put the three together. And just the body from the M15 just edged the other two out. It was made especially for that lower alcohol style.”
“Does it come from the Windsor strain? That’s the only other strain that I know that sort of has, a popular strain that has that sort of high finishing gravity, or is it a completely different strain?"
"It’s actually a different strain.”
Here he flat out denies that M15 is Windsor. Either lying or it is actually different (S-33, London ESB?).
A couple of quotes on how they work with manufacturers.
“Yeah, so we work with a couple of dried yeast manufacturers who do a lot of our biological work for us and propagation.”
“So you do have the sites where we do find other yeast strains that are out on the market that we really do like and are really popular. And we do take those and we then try to figure out how we can maybe improve on it. We might mix that with another culture of yeast, maybe provide a shift to what we want the yeast strain to be like.”
“I see. So when you guys are looking for a strain like that, do you go to the lab that’s ultimately manufacturing and say, we’re looking for a strain with these qualities because we know our consumers want them, and then they either create the strain or go and take something from their library? Is that how it works? So you don’t bring them a strain and send them more of this?”
“Normally, we’re going to them with where we think that there’s a gap, where we want to put in a strain, and they’re then helping us go through the development process there, or they’re coming to us with something that they’re really excited about, and we’re then looking at how we can make that work and grow from there.”
Seems compatible with both (a) plain relabeling, (b) mixing, (c) sourcing strains from the collections that are not part of the current offerings of the big manufacturers.
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Potential fun twist! Maybe M15 is actually the original EDME strain?
MJ is a brand of Bevie, which was a result of a merger of the companies SPL and Brewcraft/Imake. Turns out that (the dormant) Brewcraft has a listed office address as “Edme Limited, Mistley, Manningtree, Essex, CO11 1HG”. Bevie also has strong connections to Muntons as a partner brand. It would be quite likely that Muntons and EDME supply the malt extracts for MJ’s kits, and there would also be a plausible connection to the EDME/Muntons yeast and potentially also the Muntons Gold which is maybe a separate Nottingham version (M42 candidate). EDME is also very closely related to Fermentis S-33.
Edit: Turns out there are two Brewcraft companies, and I linked the wrong one. Here is the right one.
@dmtaylor I think you were right regarding M54. Here it is side by side with M44 and M84. Given some variations in grain color (M54 white granules chopped up compared to M84) due to batches/mixing I think it is highly plausible that M54 = M84 (greater part) + M44 (smaller part). For once there would be some kind of logic to MJ naming: Californian Lager = Californian Ale + “Lager”.
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There’s an awful lot of guessing goes on with the origins of yeast, and when it gets posted on the internet it starts to get believed. I see some things that are widely believed that I don’t believe myself, based on my own experiences.
Some latest thoughts on MJ yeasts I’ve used. I think they do blend things but they seem to use enzymes to alter performance? So two colours may not necessarily be two yeasts?
M44 seems the same as Bry-97 to me. US-05 is different of course.
I’ve not used M42 but the ex MJ head of marketing UK told me 8 or 9 years ago that one of their yeasts is Nottingham, which I think must be M42. I use other brands of Nottingham. He wouldn’t share any other yeast info, very cagey.
M31 and M41 are both diastatic with same predicted attenuation, but they are different. My GUESS would be they are both Belle Saison plus another.
M31 could be BS & Abbaye, it has the same early banana. I like it and keep it in stock.
M41 is lower flavour, but also very nice, maybe BS again, plus a more neutral yeast. Like BE-256, or maybe even Nottingham or Bry-97? 
I like both M31 and M41, really good dry offerings from MJ, and different from anything else on the market. I’m now using M31 in saisons and M41 in English bitters. M41 fermented at the cooler end in a low gravity wort gives pretty subtle esters and a nice dry finish. My last bitter went 1040 to 1006, was based on Harvey’s Best, and wasn’t too far away. Same ball park. To my taste buds. I was very happy. I split the batch with Sussex yeast from Brewlab (believed to be Harvey’s main strain) and BE-256. The Sussex and M41 batches were quite similar. BE-256 was much cleaner and less flavoursome/interesting.
I’ve always assumed M36 was a blend too, when I used it there seemed to be a quick flocc, hard sediment on the bottom and a slower flocc, fluffier sediment on top of that. I wondered if it was Notty and Windsor but I’ve no evidence for that. M36 is a pretty good dry yeast option where you want an English ale yeast with more character than Notty or S-04. Truer English character than Verdant.
M12 surely Lalbrew Voss, released after Lalbrew Voss
M21 behaved like T-58 for me but I’m not sure it’s the same.
M24 Versa must be Novalager.
M29 I used it once and it could be Belle Saison but not 100% sure.
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FYI – I just noticed Mangrove Jack M10 Workhorse was suddenly discontinued at the turn of the year. Funny… if it was in fact repackaged Lallemand London ESB… that was discontinued a couple of years ago. MJ must have finally run out of stock.
I’ll continue to look into the M31 thing. Current theory is that it is a blend of Belle and BE-256. Might also be Belle & Windsor but that just seems like an odd couple to me. Reasons being: An anonymous tip suggests half is Belle and the other half probably English in origin, just don’t know which English strain it might be – many contenders but none in particular seem to make the greatest sense honestly. But Windsor definitely IS fruity, and definitely would benefit from being co-pitched with Belle! Might be a way for manufacturers to get rid of some poorly attenuative yeast that might not be selling all that well?!
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Workhorse was described as having high attenuation, the London yeast had low attenuation. I wouldn’t think the two are the same?
My personal opinion is that M31 produces too much in the way of esters and phenols to be a blend of an English strain and Belle Saison.
Yes, well… yeast manufacturers are also known to exaggerate profusely. For instance, Lallemand Windsor ale, which averages about 60% in the real universe, is said by the manufacturer to get 65-72% attenuation. Ain’t nobody getting that without mashing overnight or adding an awful lot of sugar. And MJ probably believes whatever marketing they get from their source manufacturers. And that’s just one extreme example.
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So what attenuation have you had with M10? I never used it myself.
Ugh, Windsor…I find that yeast to be all over the place for attenuation, but it certainly hits lower values more frequently than other strains. I took a look at records from my past batches, and Windsor ranged from 43%(!!!) to 74% measured attenuation (as calculated in BeerSmith). The high value was in a session pale ale; the low value was in a brown ale mashed at 156 degrees.
I have always assumed the manufacturers’ attenuation values to be from standard worts of unspecified nature, but it certainly is opaque for many.
That is true. But I know that the attenuation Wyeast lists for 1450 is lower than what I get, so…
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I have not used any Mangrove Jack yeasts at all. They’re not yet super widely available in my area or even among the many online shops that I typically use. Eventually I’ll make it a point to try all the MJ yeasts. Just haven’t got around to it yet. But I do accept data points from online folks of course, which is where I got most of my MJ data from, people just like you and probably including you.
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digressing slightly - what do you guys think about dry yeast in 2026?
i use it but in certain circumstances
-i want to make a certain style that i dont intend to make more than 1 beer of ie. hefeweizen AND i believe there is a decent representation of that as a dry yeast
-i want to make a strong beer with a gravity over 1.060 without making an initial beer to step up the yeast volume (tell me if im wrong here, or if you have an alternative). this means i get 2 or 3 packs of yeast for a 5 gallon wort depending on OG. generally bry97/verdant/lallemand abbaye come to mind
-i for whatever reason really dont want to make a starter and think the yeast is good enough for my purpose. (this is very limited, basically just BRY97)
but these days i in absolute honestly do not want to use dry yeast for my effort beers. for the beers i am generally making as the best combination of yeast profile and ingredients i feel like ive gotten distinctly better results from liquid yeasts.
thoughts?
I broadly agree with you and prefer to use liquid yeasts but the cost and extra work mean I do use dry yeast a fair bit. In the UK liquid yeasts packs are about £15 which is $20+ and they’ve crossed the Atlantic and aren’t generally in great fettle when we get our hands on them. We do have Brewlab yeast slants which are good, and good value at about £7, but they are not marketed in the most accessible manner and few people use them. I do occasionally.
The beers I know inside out are English cask ales and I don’t have a cask set up at home but I do make bottle conditioned beers, and CAMRA regards bottle conditioned beers as real ale. In my opinion there is not a dry yeast option that gets close to the best English real ales. You need to buy one of the liquid English options, or culture up a brewery yeast, there is a significant difference. You can get a reasonable result with Nottingham for a cleaner ale, and some flavour by adding Windsor, but not the same depth of character and very little variety.
Most UK home brewers seem to use dry, because of the cost issue and also I think lack of confidence in handling liquid and maybe not wanting the extra starter step. I think this is a shame because a starter is a very simple thing to do and can help brewers elevate their beers. Many brewers here see brewing as mashing and sparging and boiling and hopping, and the yeast as the easy instant bit. It’s progress because ten years ago most homebrewers here make kit beers with canned hopped extract. Many have bought all in ones. The cost is still a barrier, though, as the yeast can cost more than the malt and hops combined. And dry yeasts have improved and multiplied.
And I guess many home brewers are making hoppy American styles and the gap between dry and liquid for these seems smaller. US-05, Verdant and Bry-97 are pretty good options for hoppy pales.
I make saisons and I think liquid trumps dry for these too. I do like M41 and M31 for Belgian styles but I’m not Belgian, or a connoisseur of Belgian ales, and I only brew them very occasionally. I suspect brewers who are serious about Belgian beer will prefer liquid yeast?
The same is probably true for lager, but the gap is less for neutral yeast styles, I think, and a lot of brewers seem to stick with dry for the convenience? Especially as larger starters are required for cold fermentation.
The obvious gap in the dry yeast options (from my perspective!) is an English yeast with true English character. Verdant behaves a lot like it’s parent, 1318, but has a non English flavour. I use it in darker English styles where the flavour is suppressed by the malts, with good results. It suggests that a dry English yeast that could match liquid versions more closely is possible, if Lallemand wanted to provide one. Why wouldn’t they want to? I’m sure it would be hugely popular across the world for brewing pale ales and IPAs.
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