Does anyone have any recommendations for a dry yeast for an English style Barleywine? Thinking an OG of 1.090-1.100.
I’ve made an Old Ale with Nottingham that turned out quite good. I’m not usually a fan of Nottingham as I get a tartness from it, but it was outstanding in the Old Ale. Starting gravity of 1.096 or thereabouts so I know it can perform on a big beer. In side by side fermentations, I preferred it in this beer over Wyeast ESB which is one of my favorites.
As a matter of fact, I have a batch fermenting now with a combination of Nottingham and Windsor (as well as a batch with ESB). I repitched this yeast from a porter where the initial sachet of Nottingham didn’t take off so I wound up pitching a second and then some Windsor. The porter came out great and if the Old Ale does, too, I may save this mix for a couple more batches.
I was happy with S04 in a barleywine.
While I have no specific experience with this yeast, WLP007 dry is a good candidate as it is a more attenuative English yeast.
WLP007 is a liquid yeast. It’s name “Dry English Ale” just refers to the fact that it ferments dryer than a typical English Ale yeast.
I used 2 packs of S-04 per 5gal in a Russian Imperial Stout and it did very well.
I get a distinct “bready” note from S-04 that I don’t get from the liquid English Ale strains. I like it in certain styles (roasty/toasty styles like brown ales & porters), but no so much in others (fruitier styles like ESB’s). I’ve always been leery in using it in something like a barleywine, since I’m afraid that the bready character would be amplified in a bigger beer with a bigger pitch of yeast. Have you guys found that to be the case?
I double pitched it in a Wee Heavy, starting gravity 1.080, and it came out great.
I like S-04 in a lot of English styles. It is a champ in terms of working hard and dropping out when done…
I too have noticed the bready character of S-04 in more sessionable styles, but in the strong ales, the other characteristics win out. So I too like S-04 for Barleywines. It also makes it easy to brew one without making starters, repitching, etc.
I don’t mind the bready taste from S-04 but fermented in the low 60s it’s a very neutral strain. I use it in my American-style beers and ferment it at 60F and it comes out perfectly clean. I brewed an English barleywine last year with S04 and I seem to recall I fermented it at 63 or 64 and it only had a hint of yeast character.
I will say with S04 is not my favorite English strain for flavor but it does really well fermenting across a range of temperatures and I’ve used it enough I know how to get what I need from it. Makes life easier to keep the one strain to ferment most of the beers I brew in the year.
I’ve used it several times in the low-mid 60’s and have been very happy. I also used it last summer with no temperature control and it was a mess. The beer was loaded with ugly bready/buttery flavors. It’s one of the only beers I’ve dumped.
Another vote for Nottingham.
I have had similar experiences with S04 when pushing into the high 60s. Very fruity and bready in my opinion. I am brewing a pale ale tomorrow and going to try this yeast again though I will be very careful to keep the temperature low. Trying to get out of the habit of using US05 for everything but its tough when you don’t have great temp control…
How do S-04 and Nottingham compare?
A big +1 here on that. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool liquid yeast devotee.
That said, S-04 has never disappointed me when doing a last minute, impulsive brew with no time to ‘grow up’ my preferred house yeast.
Ans it’s great through multiple repitches as well. I’ve even repitched S-04 yeast from a barleywine ferment into a mild ale ferment with no issues whatsoever.
I used to pretty much exclusively use liquid yeast as well. Been switching back to dried yeast for the past couple of years. My access to viable liquid yeast is somewhat questionable where I live. I used to have quite a collection of cultures but I started finding it too time consuming to keep up with culture maintenance and getting my cultures started ahead of time. I’d like to get my culture ranch started again at some point and get culture samples into the deep freeze so I don’t have to worry about reculturing them, etc. Next time I take a trip down to the States (I’m in Alaska) I might have to pick up a couple of fresh cultures to bring back with me. For now I’ve been enjoying how easy dried yeast has been.
I’ve never used S-04, but I bought some recently with the intention of doing a comparison.
I don’t get “bready” from Nottingham. I do find it to have more esters than you might expect as it is usually described as a “neutral” fermenter. Mostly, for me, that’s been expressed as a tartness on the finish. I’ll get a similar tartness from some commerical English ales, but not as pronounced.
My hope is that I’ll like S-04 and use it instead of Nottingham. I’ve been disappointed with most of my lower gravity beers that used Nottingham but it seems to be a champ on the bigger beers. And I don’t get the tartness. Maybe it ages out?
Well I ended up going with S-04. I ended up pitching 3 packs into my wort with an OG of 1.100 (a couple of the packs were old so I wanted to make sure I had good viable yeast). Took it from 1.100 to 1.018 in 7 days! Tasting a little hot right now but I imagine that will mellow with age. Tastes like good barleywine underneath the alcohol heat.
The aging will definitely be beneficial… I usually let my Barleywines age for at least a year before enjoying it and I brew it regularly so I always have some with proper age on it. For me (and as per tradition) the aging step is key if you’re going for a true, traditional English Barleywine/Old Ale (which historically are of course essentially the same thing)