Do Breweries Use Proprietary Yeast Strains?

Many popular, hard-to-get beers have had clone recipes created that are very close to the real thing. Russian River has voluntarily released the recipe for a 5-gallon version of Pliny the Elder. Zombie Dust is another popular beer that has a clone recipe available. Both of those recipes have been available in these threads over the years, so a quick search should get you the threads that contain the info on both of them if you are interested in either. Homebrew suppliers commonly sell kits that are said to clone popular beers too. Bell's Two Hearted is a popular one.

As for the yeast strains, many breweries do have a proprietary yeast that may or may not be available in the marketplace. Andmany breweries buy their yeast from the same commercial sources that are available to you. I haven't seen much info on that topic to be able to say more than that.

 

For beers that were bottle conditioned, or at least not centrifuged, filtered, or pasteurized, you can often grow pitchable qtys from bottle dregs (sediment at the bottom of the bottles) using multi-step starters. They would be "2nd generations" (actually there would be more than 2 involved), but that's not necessarily a show stopper.

As for hybrids, for that you'd need at least two strains, and it only happens rarely. A valid concern though would be a (intentionally) mixed culture of two or more stains. The more "generations" you take a mixed culture through, the less the proportions of each strain may resemble the original proportions.

And beware of breweries that filter out the original strain and bottle condition with a different strain.

All that said, there are lots of people successfully capturing and culturing yeast that isn't otherwise commercially available.

 

Proprietary in the sense that others can't use the yeast without permission? No.
Do breweries have their own carefully guarded unique strain? Absolutely.

Nothing is stopping anyone from propagating a yeast cell from any commercial beer. It is done all the time. Just don't call it "Chimay" or "Sierra Nevada" and it is perfectly accepted and legal.

You can certainly brew clone beers without much trouble, and a lot of us put effort into getting the clone as near as possible as the original. Be warned, if you think you have a developed understanding of your target beer you will quickly see that the last 5% is quite elusive. You can spend a lifetime getting all of the parts together.

Chris White states that one of the reasons White Labs does not label their strains with the brewery name is to avoid legal trouble and they instead opt to describe the yeast in a way most anyone can figure out. That and interestingly, the pure yeast cultured in the lab is pretty much identical to the first culture they developed from the commercial supply/bottle no matter how many generations. That's what the lab does after all. But the brewery itself is often not using the identical strain. Close enough but not really identical. So they periodically collect a new culture and start over if needed.

Cheers.

 

First let me say that the responses so far have been excellent. Here is my two cents.

This may seem like an overly direct question, but how long have you been brewing? What kind of brewing, fermenting, and packaging equipment are you using?

Absolutely. Some very popular beers have very simple recipes and some breweries even post them on their websites. Others may be a bit more difficult.

Many breweries use multiple generations of the same initial yeast pitch before they repitch. Unless you brew A LOT, you will not be able to achieve this at home. Many breweries have labs, so as to perform QC and isolate yeast strains. Unless you have a microbiology background and the proper equipment, isolation is not going to be a possibility for you. However, you certainly can use bottle conditioned beer as a source for yeast, as long as you know the provenance.

 

You might want to consider going a bit bigger (e.g., a 10 gallon cooler) if you intend to ever brew higher gravity beers.

Cheers!

 

Great responses!
I will add that although not a true 'proprietary strain' many breweries' house strains work very differently in large conical fermenters than they do in 5 gal. carboys.
WY 1968 being, in my experience, a great example of this. It is an extremely popular house strain in many breweries (expecially, but not necessarily, those specializing in hoppy styles). But homebrew clones often come out slightly or very different than their target beers due to the curious consistency of the strain and how it reacts with different size/shape fermenters.

 

Many breweries order pitches of their favorite yeast, use it x generations, then reorder a new yeast pitch.

Some breweries have a house yeast that they maintain and propagate, Bell’s is one example. You can harvest that yeast from bottles, it has a nice orange ester. I have harvested and brewed with it maybe once a year.

Some have a yeast they top crop and use, and continue to use for over a hundred generations.

You can always do web searches to see if any brewery says what they use, and if they bottle with it.

 

Jeff, is there something unique about the top cropping process that permits the yeast to be reused so many times? Is it an issue that the yeast never goes through the complete fermentation process and thereby never gets 'beat up'?

Cheers!

 

Hay, I don’t brew professionally, and am not a microbiologist, but here goes.

The first parts of fermentation are skimmed and discarded. That includes Braunhefe and many contaminating microorganisms end up on the top early. The mid fermentation is said to be just yeast, that is what is skimmed and retained. Then the rest of the yeast is allowed to finish up.

Some breweries are said to be using strains for over 20 years. Harvey’s in the south of England is often mentioned.

Ring wood was a top cropper, and for all of its drawbacks, you were said to be able to repitch it for a long time via top cropping. Attractive as a pitch of yeast for 7 barrels is a lot of dollars.

 

Just to double check, that is 20 years of reusing yeast without going back to an 'original source'?

I have read (and been told) that most commercial breweries will only reuse yeast a few times (e.g., 5-10 times) and then go back to their source (yeast bank) or reorder from a yeast vendor and start over.

There must be something 'magical' about top cropping to yield such differeng performance here.

Cheers!

 

Maybe it is a generation thing? Perhaps the top cropped yeast cells are perpetually first generation cells?

 

Yeah, just harvest and repitch.

A local brewpub was on 200-300 something with Ringwood, got fed up with the Diacetyl, changed to Essex, and went 90+ with that.

 

Not a microbiologist or pro brewer either, but top cropping simply harvests the yeast at the pinnacle of yeast health. Yeast that are strongly fermenting and don't need to spend energy on replication (that have high glycerol, nutrient, and carbon reserves) are happy yeast.

 

Smaller breweries tend to reuse their yeast less than the bigger breweries. I stopped reusing yeast almost entirely at my brewery because I don't have a good way to top crop and the majority of our beers use a true top cropping strain. A lot of the guys I talked to in Portland were getting pitches of yeast from other breweries that they trust nearby. Then there's the Alchemist who I think at one point said that they use up to 20 generations of Conan (I can't find the video interview... anyone know which one I'm talking about?).

At school, we were advised against going beyond 8 generations. At my last brewery, I typically went 3 generations, but would go up to 5 on occasion. All that said, I don't know any small-mid sized breweries that use proprietary strains. I do know a few have started their own yeast banks with 2nd or 3rd generation yeast feeling like they liked the results of that generation better than the original, but with good harvesting practices, there really shouldn't be a difference between the original pitch and the 3rd generation. With great practices, up to 8 generations should be easy, but most of us don't have the equipment for that type of handling.

Also, most breweries do not top crop or skim the krausen.

For the most part, if you know which strain a brewery uses that is being sold by a yeast lab, it is going to be so close to the brewer's yeast strain that you won't notice a difference if you are able to make all things equal. The likelihood that a homebrewer can replicate the hydrostatic pressure of a commercial breweries fermenter is very slim. If you're fermenting in buckets or carboys, the difference will be greater as well. Definitely not worse, just different.

 

One thing I found visiting small family breweries in Bavaria is that they will get fresh healthy yeast from their friends in the next city with a big brewery when they brew, as they only brew once or twice a month at the small brewery.

 

That seemed common in my experience in Bavaria as well. I have never used yeast from another brewery as I don’t have confidence in any other brewer’s yeast handling in my areas, even the ones that I think highly of, it just seems too risky to me. I don’t trust a lot of labs even actually.

 

Yeah, one place near a Bamberg said he would get lager yeast from a lager brewery, Rauchbier yeast from a Rauchbier brewery, and so on.

 

I believe that it's in this episode of Chop & Brew.