so i’m making a dubbel this weekend. i’m currently at the inlaws on long island for the holiday and was killing some time, thought i’d check out a homebrew shop close by. was looking for some wyeast or white labs but the shop only had dry yeast, when i went for T-58 the owner said ‘oh no, don’t use that, use the s-33, it gives great belgian characteristics!’. i had somewhat remembered reading reviews of s-33 but decide to take the guys word for it and make the $3 purchase…well i get home, do some searches, and low and behold i read less than thrilling reviews of s-33 for belgian styles. when i get back to CT i’ll venture off to get some abbey II or trappist…but now i have this packet of s-33…what the heck kind of yeast is this? i’ve heard it’s a less attenuative english yeast? help? please don’t say it’s a dry edme yeast…i have read that and don’t really know what it means… 
Edme was (is?) a British brewery and that’s the yeast they used (use?).
Edme is a malt supplier and was one of the earlier British homebrew supply companies, rather than a brewer. Lots of people used, and still used their kits.
Their homebrew website is here - http://www.tomcaxton.com/edme/index.htm
The industial arm is here - http://www.edme.com/
sooo like…an esb?
thanks for the info by the way.
I didn’t get the phenols that I see in a lot of Belgian styles. Other then the pear-like esters that dissipated after a while the beer was pretty clean.
It is what Northern Brewer supplies in their Tongue Splitter kit if you get the dry yeast option. They match it with Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale as a liquid option, which I found odd. ??? I got a lot of peppery and phenolic flavors out of it. :-\ It seemed in my opinion to be suitable for a Belgian wheat or Trappist, as Fermentis suggests, but not for a west coast IPA.
I’ve used S-33 in porters and never noticed anything phenolic or Belgian-y about it. It was a bit estery like a British yeast, but fairly clean. FG was higher than I expected. It’s not a great attenuator.