Transatlantic Goldilocks Yeast

Ingredients
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As someone who brews mostly British and American styles, and transatlantic hybrids (like an off-style brown ale or porter), I have used lots of different yeast strains and experimented with temperatures (fermentation and mash) and adjuncts to determine which strains do American and English styles how I like them. After I settled on 1968/002/A09 as my favored English strain and pacman/A18 as my favorite American strain, I found it annoying/expensive to maintain two different strains. I often split batches between liquid strains and dry strains, and I do feel like US-05 is a worthy and convenient stand-in strain for a dry IPA and that s-04 is great for dark british and American styles when fermented very cool. This led to trying out various “goldilocks” strains like 007, 051, Conan, and 1311.

A15 (Anchor ale yeast) makes a great malty or balanced American style and is fine for a British dark beer or a pre-2010 style American pale or amber ale, but I don’t love it for a dry, hoppy beer. Additionally, I find it to have a narrow ideal temperature range (62-66, imo) and it is less reliably fast or flocculant than other options. I use imperial strains because they’re local and I like the increased cell count.

A38/wy1318 (hopworks/ne breweries) is a great yeast for English styles, and fine for the trendy ne IPA style, but I haven’t gotten it to be attenuative enough for certain styles of IPA. I like it enough for a red ale or stout or anything under about 1.060, though. It clears fast and fully, and it works at a fairly wide temp range (60-68 F).

A09 (Fuller’s/Deschutes) is an incredible and versatile yeast, but it doesn’t excel at anything dry and big - though it’s my first choice for a session IPA or most English styles.

A04 (Conan/Vermont) is actually my least favorite American strain for IPA. I had better luck using it for brown ales and porters. It was hard to get it to clear. The mouthfeel was great, though.

A01 (Stone) ostensibly this is the ideal dual-use strain, but I found some issues. While it makes a good IPA because of the citrusy esters (even at cold temps), it has been far more dry than I would like and I didn’t like the flavors it contributed to my dark ales or bitters (too citrusy). In side-side tests, I preferred US-05 for IPA and S-04 for a bitter. It is also less flocculant than advertised, ime.

So, my conclusion is that the best Goldilocks yeast is A38, with the caveat that I would still use US-05 or pacman for an IPA over 1.060.

And I think 007/A01/1098 shouldn’t be called “dry English” or “British,” but that “San Diego Ale” or “Southern California Ale” would be a more appropriate name.

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This is a good write-up. Thanks for posting…

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Have you tried 1469? That’s my go-to strain for British styles, and I’ve used it for a couple American styles as well. (Pale/Brown ales, porter.)

If you have used it for and American IPA I’m curious what you thought of the outcome. I got out of brewing IPAs before I “discovered” this strain, but plan on adding them back into my rotation.

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I didn’t think to try 1469 for American style ales. I have tried it for English ales and liked it slightly less than 002. I actually adored 006 for bitters and stouts, and would like to try it for American styles, but it’s rarely available.

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I did a split batch of 1318 and 1469, and it was interesting how it turned out. Like you seemed to find, the two are damned close. In the tested beer, the 1318 seemed to favor malt, and the 1469 seemed to favor hops/fruitiness. Those who tried the beers were pretty evenly split in preference. I opted to use 1469 as my “default” only because it’s top cropping and 1318 isn’t.

I’ll have to watch for WLP009. I’ve got two vials of the WLP033 Klassic Ale yeast to play with as well. (If i can revive them…) Thanks for the info.

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Thanks Skyler, for sharing your insights.  I have made a lot of PA’s and IPA’s with US-05, to save $$, because it is always easily obtained, and because I too like it.  But I’m trying to more routinely try different yeasts, and especially since my LHBS recently started carrying Imperial, will definitely give the Pacman a try on my next PA or IPA, once I’ve diminished my current inventory some more.  I was planning on this anyway, but your post has me more eagerly looking forward to that.  I’m very happy with, and have gotten a lot of recent compliments on, a porter and an ESB I have on tap which used the A09 (Fullers).

Cheers.