Thought some one might find this of interest
I went to the home brew shop on Saturday and found this:
East Coast Yeast
**ECY10 Old Newark Ale: Sourced from a now defunct east coast brewery, this pure strain was identified as their ale pitching yeast. Good for all styles of American and English ales. Suggested fermentation temp: 60-68°F. Apparent attenuation : 68-72% **
It’s supposedly Ballantine yeast
I googled it and didn’t find much
I will be brewing with it soon and post some results
“Old Newark” does seem to be the real deal Ballantine ale yeast.
I obtained some of this a couple months ago, have brewed with it, and I tend to agree now with the manufacturer that it is clearly NOT the same as Chico/001/1056 since it behaves quite differently (flocs out much better), and seems identical to the pure culture I had quite a few years ago but lost in a malfunctioning fridge while I was working out of town for 2 months (insert your favorite expletive here).
In any case, the Pale Ale I made with it as a test came out just as I had hoped, and next week I’m putting it to work on double batches of both IPA and Burton ale. Those will tell the tale for me.
If you can get your hands on some, definitely try it.
Hopefully the manufacturer (East Coast Yeast) will gradually achieve wider distribution. Right now, it is available from Princeton Homebrew (in Trenton, NJ)…a store you should definitely visit if you are in or passing through southern NJ.
All of the EAST COAST products are liquid yeasts.
Some time back, Joe at Princeton Homebrew sent me the descriptors of the first round of ECY products…since there is no website, I’ll pass along the info here:
ECY01 BugFarm: A large complex blend of cultures to emulate sour beers such as lambic style ales. Over time displays a citrus sourness and large barnyard profile. Contains yeast (S. cerevisiae and S. fermentati), severalBrettanomyces strains, Lactobacillus and Pediococcus. The BugFarm blend changes every year and can be added at any stage of fermentation.
ECY10
_Old Newark Ale: Sourced from a now defunct east coast brewery, this pure strain was identified as their ale pitching yeast. Good for all styles of American and English ales. Suggested fermentation temp: 60-68°F. Apparent attenuation : 68-72% _
ECY07
_Scottish Heavy: Leaves a fruity profile with woody, oak esters reminiscent of malt whiskey. Well suited for90/shilling or heavier ales including old ales and barleywines due to level of attenuation (77-80%). Suggested fermentation temp: 60-68°F. _
ECY08 Saison Brasserie blend : A combination of several Saison yeasts for both fruity and spicy characteristics accompianied with dryness. Apparent attenuation: up to 80%. Suggested fermentation temp: 75-85° F.
Thanks for the info - it would be great to get the pure strains at some point, but I’m not in any rush really. If someone has a sample they’d like to trade I’d be cool with that. I’ll just stick it in the -80 at work for later use . . .
Glad I saw this. Getting ready to head up 95 to NJ for my daughter’s wedding & planned to stop in & see Joe. Been wanting to recreate the Ballentine XXX.
I made a small 500ml starter and pitched it into 5.5 gallons of 1.045 wort
air lock bubbling within two hours. It seemed to really flocculate well, and settle out quick in the starter.
Jeff, I’d be interested in your rendition of the Burton Ale. After having drank them myself and others here on the forum(Denny et al) and along with my tasting notes reflecting what Brockington reported in the 90’s of the apparent “apple and pear” aroma, I personally would surmise that they actually used the Bass strain for those two batches they brewed in '34 and '46. Getting back ot, it’s funny how brewing myths can seem reality, when I lived in Chico and talked to Ken Grossman about the analogy that he got his yeast from the dying Ballantine brand back in the late 70’s, he immediately chuckled and told me he got a strain that was banked at Siebel in Chicago and went on the performance specs.
The Newark Yeast intrigues me and is inspiring me to brew up some more Ballantine IPA project beers now that I have a source for “organic” Brewers Gold which I believe was a favorite at Ballantines. I’ve subbed Cluster on recommendations but, I’m ready to rework the recipe with BG. This is awesome! Let’s keep the conversation going!
Some of this will likely repeat what I may have posted elsewhere, but since it’s relevant to the discussion at hand, here goes:
From what I had been able to find out from a few former Ballantine employees a number of years ago (and I started inquiring about it probably more than 30 years ago), their XXX, IPA, Brown Stout, Porter, and Burton ales ALL used the same Ballantine house ale yeast . The strain originated in England, but nothing I was told firsthand or read elsewhere ever led me to believe it was the Bass strain. The Ballantine strain (whatever its UK origins) was certainly robust enough that there would have been no reason to substitute something else.
My ongoing experiments with reproducing the Bally IPA have settled in with Cluster and Bullion for the hops; Brewers Gold was used by the brewery for a time, but is a bit more difficult to find nowadays and Bullion is a very good substitute as far as my palate can discern. As pointed out many times, the real keys to their IPA were the long aging period (they aged it for 1 year, in wooden aging tanks) and the use of hop oil in addition to the dry hopping.
I’m still working on the hop oil part of it, but aside from that issue, the only times I’ve ever come remotely close to reproducing the beer was when I could keep my mitts off of it and let it fully age for 8-12 months.
As far as the Burton beer, it’s also interesting to note that (according to at least one firsthand account) other than the unbelievably long aging prior to bottling (up to 20 years), their Burton was essentially the same beer as their IPA- -perhaps ramped up a bit with a higher OG at the outset-- – but topped up annually with select batches of the IPA once the yearly Xmas bottling was done. That’s evidently how they were able to keep up the tradition for 20+ years.
Not sure about that…the color that pours from surviving bottles of the Burton today is pretty much the same deep amber/copper hue that the IPA had when I drank it regularly in the late 60’s and early 70’s. The aging may have darkened it somewhat, but I think most of the color just came from the malts used.
In my tasting notes of both bottles off the Burton I drank indicate the color as “Dorothy’s Ruby Red Slippers”. Anchor’s Old Foghorn is pretty close to BBA
I’ll be anxious to see that too, Denny…as I recall, I think you mentioned once that you tasted a sample from the 1934 brewing, right?
All of my bottles are from 1946 brewing, and bottled in 1960, 62, 63, 65, and 66 (x2).
Interesting stuff, it is…sure do wish I could have tasted it when it was first bottled or within a few years of that.