LAIII Faux Lager

GABF winning cream ale from a few years ago was brewed with LAIII. I believe North American Beer Awards (or whatever it’s called) gold for Vienna was also brewed with LAIII, I could be wrong but pretty sure.

Same brewery has done pilot batches with Andechs and LAIII and compared and said while there certainly was a difference it wasn’t huge.

I think a lot depends on how you ferment your lagers. If you let them ramp up to normal Ale temps at the end the difference might not be as dramatic.

I don’t know said breweries fermentation temps so I can’t help you there but I do known Alchemist just did a Kolsch with Conan fermented at 56 which is way lower than I thought that strain would ferment.

 

FWIW, Ive pitched and held both WY1318 and WL007 around those temps (slightly lower 14*c) for a few days at the start of some seriously high SG imperial stouts. Both had plenty of fresh healthy slurry and 2 mins of pure O2, neither fermentation had any problems taking off that low.

 

Around 1.5 or slightly higher.

Sorry I don’t have proper notes for LA3. It was a Barleywine started at about 1.120 with 1318 slurry from a pale ale and finished with WLP530

007 was recent. I did a two step starter, 1L then 4L into 15 gallons of 1.060 smoked porter. Dumped trub and discarded the early flockers. Pitched everything else into 15 gallons of 1.146 imperial stout. Finished at 1.042 in 6 weeks. Took a month to grind out the last 10pts.

 

I can't speak to how lager-like this beer will come out as I can't say how it will perform under those temps. However, assuming it cleans up any diacetyl that is thrown, it should be a delicious beer. Someone already said cream ale, and while you may not be able to pass this off to a beer judge as a lager, no one can fault you for brewing a delicious cream ale.

 

I think you'll likely get a lot of diacetyl. As soon as gravity falls to about 1.025 after the first 48 hours or whatever, jack up the temperature to 68 F to finish up and keep it there for a good week or two. Long extended diacetyl rest. IF needed. I think it will be needed.

Given all that, with no diacetyl, I think you'll get a great faux lager out of this recipe. Cheers.

 

I’d aim for 1.5mil if you’re gonna go into the 50s. 007 and 1318 are rather different yeasts. 007 is actually much better colder IMHO and 1318 is really pretty good even up to 72/74.

I’ve fermented a normal pitch of So4 at 59 with zero issues. Very typical ferment.

Interested to know how it turns out. I can probably get some more info for you from the brewer I know but it’ll have to wait until the end of the month. He’s been using 1318 since 1995 so he knows everything little thing about it.

 

John Kimmich has said that Conan will ferment well down to 50F. The old brewpub's Lightweight was fermented with Conan. I've made a pretty close Pappy's Porter clone, fermented at 62F, and a nice cream ale ("Lightweight Heavy") fermented at 57F with Conan scavenged from cans of Heady. The cream ale was brilliantly clear after 2 days in the keg. There's not much that this yeast can't do.

YMMV with the commercially available versions.