I came across a post on “Milk the Funk” that started some travel down a rabbit hole. I know from a previous dive down the yeast genome rabbit hole that Wyeast 1056 was not the same as WLP-001. The first link says 1056 is the same as Wlp-051.
The second link is from White Labs. Go to Wlp-051. It says that it is now classified as a Sach. Pastorianus strain I.e. a lager strain. So 1056 and WLP-051 are said to be classified as lager strains now. Some lager strains were previously said to be found as ale strains.
Mind blown!
Oh, and yeast originated in China. Saw that before.
The Chico strain has been said to be from Ballantine’s “beer” brewery, the Bry-97/Wlp-051 was from the Ballantine Ale Brewery. Now it is said that the Ale yeast is actually a lager yeast. If S. Cervisiae was still active, I would be interested on his take on this.
I’m not Mark, but I’m not at all surprised by the idea that 1056 might be a lager strain. If not it’s an ale strain that is so clean it might as well be, and it’s an ale strain that works well at 50F…
Edit:
Once this is settled, it will rock the beer world when people are forced to admit that SNPA is actually an American Pilsner.
The Chico strain has been said to be similar to WLP-001, 1056 was found to be different from 001.
Founders said that they use 1056 at the NHC in Grand Rapids. That is the rock the beer world fact, Founders is a Lager Brewey! Well if you think yeast defines a lager or ale brewery.
One thing that has been said, in a few years we will rethink the difference between Ales and lagers.
Very interesting information. I currently have been just using WY 1056 and WY 2124 over and over again. I guess I’ve been using two Lager strains or maybe 2124 is actually an Ale strain because I’ve fermented it at 60-62 and it was still clean.
I just tried Fat Heads new seasonal, Starlight German Lager. Of all the macro-ish craft lagers on the scene lately, this was far and away the cleanest and most authentically lager-like I’ve tried. Now, their other lagers are all made with 34/70. Imagine my surprise when I went to Fat Heads website and found this one lists the yeast as “American Ale.” Or, would have been surprised if I hadn’t also seen some of these genomics studies. An interesting xBmt would be a four-way split, two yeasts (34/70 and 1056) and two temps (“lager” and “ale.”)
I’m really curious where the ale/lager line will be redrawn, and how that line is split when it comes to top cropping…
As a rule, I tend to not care for warm bottom fermenting “ale” strains, 1450 being a notable standard exception and 1056 being the standard of dislike. Going to be interesting if this data shows me a thread to tie all this together…
I said this.
“The Chico strain has been said to be from Ballantine’s “beer” brewery, the Bry-97/Wlp-051 was from the Ballantine Ale Brewery. Now it is said that the Ale yeast is actually a lager yeast. If S. Cervisiae was still active, I would be interested on his take on this.”
Mark had said Chico=BRY-96 from the beer brewery. The Ale Brewery used BRY-97 which is the same as WLP-051 (Anchors “Ale” strain. If BRY-97 as dry strain is a lager, the long lag times may be due to that, I.e. we need to pitch a lot more.
I was going off this… “The first link says 1056 is the same as Wlp-051.
The second link is from White Labs. Go to Wlp-051. It says that it is now classified as a Sach. Pastorianus strain I.e. a lager strain. So 1056 and WLP-051 are said to be classified as lager strains now.” In conjunction with the rest. So… whatever.
Any idea, anybody, if it works well pitched at 50°F, maybe at lager pitch rates, or does it just keep going if temperature is dropped during fermentation? Using 2124 as my “house” strain, I know it can be warmed up to make old-timey American “ales” (cream ale, etc.) Kind of curious if 1056 could be used the other way around, in a conventional lager fermentation.
I think it is experiment time …It stands to reason that 1056 would handle lager temps. However it also points to the need to toss out a lot of the yeast substitution charts that are out there. US - 05 does not perform well at lager temps based on my experiences and now seeing that it definitively isn’t the equivalent of Wy1056, it makes sense.
My experience with US-05 is the opposite; we’d pitch in the upper 50s and it would steadily cool to 48-52°F depending on the season. We were able to run pretty normal ale fermentation schedules that way.
A lot of us have anecdotal evidence that dry strains don’t perform like their wet sources even when there is no question of the origin (I’m one of the dry 34/70 skeptics.) As dry yeast becomes more and more favored by breweries, maybe this will be an area of research.
As far as experimenting with 1056 in lager fermentation, well, next time I decide to buy a new pitch, I guess it’s 1056 instead of 2124! Brewing tomorrow, so a bit late for that now…but I’m eager to try this.