Brewery Yeast Choices

This is from what I know about homebrewing. IPA, pale ale, amber ale etc rely on the hops and malts for flavors. Belgians, saisons, and sours are yeast driven. I brew three different saisons that use the exact malt and hops but taste completely different because of the yeasts. For IPAs I use US05 because it is a clean fermenting yeast.

 

I'm certainly far from an expert, but I would think that level of ester production is a consideration when choosing a yeast strain? Someone more knowledgeable on the subject can correct me if this is wrong.

 

There are a lot of logistical reasons that hopefully pro brewers will get into in more detail, but they definitely try to brew more than one kind of beer with their 'house' strain. After a batch that yeast will get re-harvested and used again, so depending on the needs of the production schedule, you would like to go with it right away.

Also- ease of use comes into play, as well as other factors of predictability, and all that.

 

It is hard to manage many yeast strains properly. At my brewery, we will not use yeast that has been stored for more than a week. We will use 8 generations. To keep the yeast healthy, it needs to be fermenting. If you have too many yeast strains, you will end up having to dump too much yeast and not getting as much use from it as we like to see. In the case of Hefe's and a few other yeast types, they are top cropping yeast strains and the most common type of fermenter in the U.S. Is not made for top cropping.

 

I'm not sure what you are talking about. I see breweries doing IPAs, hoppy saisons, hoppy lagers and brett IPAs all the time.

 

Yes, but that can lead to higher costs for those beers due to a sort of 'planned' inefficient use of that yeast strain which may be an 'oddball' for your brewery.

 

Maybe they haven't used the specific yeast you are looking for but like I said I've seen plenty of breweries doing hop forward beers with different types of yeast.

 

Say your brewery has a flagship saison, a pale ale, and room for some specialty thing. Use the saison strain on the pale ale then maybe make a few Belgian pales in the rotation for a few batches until the yeast is done. Doesn't seem odd or inefficient to me.

 

What I was getting at was if you brought in something new for a seasonal or one-off beer, then that would have to be figured into the price point. Sure, if it was successful and your lineup starts rolling in that direction as well, then other beers could be planned around it. But like @honkey said above, they like to get 8 generations in before starting again with a new batch, otherwise it's not efficient use of the yeast.

 

So with your example how is a strain from American origin and the other from English origin in the same family?

 

Some breweries deliberately use a yeast strain that has minimal contribution to the flavors thereby relying on hops and malt for the flavors.

 

Sure, I'm considering a favorable scenario for the brewer. I don't feel like the random one-off/seasonal is very uncommon though. I see it all the time, even more in brewpubs.

 

The only brewery Im aware of that actually uses more than one yeast for all IPA's is Cellarmaker, otherwise I've seen most stick to one strain per style. I do feel like saison is a good example though where the brewery will experiment with different strains of brett and other yeasts to get certain yeast profiles. So I guess what I am saying is that beyond the brewery itself, its actually the style of beer that either begs or doesn't beg experimentation with specific yeast.

 

Oh yeah- the smaller the brewer the more flexibility they have, especially if most of their sales is draught and they can whip something up without getting label approval and all that.

 

I think often the house yeast contributes to a general, recognizable brewery flavor. I definitely know a Sierra Nevada of Lagunitas beer when I have one, and I think much of that comes from the familiar yeast flavors.