The Search for Vintage Lager Strains

I am curious as to what specific attributes are you seeking from a ‘legacy’ lager yeast strain? Are you seeking a lager yeast strain that has low attenuation? Are you seeking a lager yeast strain that produces subtle esters? Are you seeking…?

A person who may be helpful to you is Greg Casey. He is a microbiologist (“…graduated from the University of Guelph in 1979 with a B.Sc. degree in Applied Microbiology before going on to attain a Ph.D. degree in 1984 in Applied Microbiology & Food Science at the University of Saskatchewan”), has a long history of working in the brewing industry and is a beer historian.

https://community.mbaa.com/network/members/profile?UserKey=44276ff4-2607-4397-b3ad-5fefe2fffada

Cheers!

 

Other folks who may be helpful to you are Jack Hendler and Joe Connolly (Jack's Abby Brewing) who wrote the recent book Modern Lager Beer (have you read this book?). Despite the aspect of "Modern" in the book's title there is quite a bit of lager brewing history in the book.

Cheers!

 

Sourcing old equipment must've been interesting, and time consuming, and it will have a story. As I know the story about the brewhouse Dovetail uses, and also its provenance.
In terms of vintage strains? I found an article from https://artifactbeer.com/blogs/blog...8QSEFpxqahcJOKfxroSY5AD3chYdDd9cT66utHICY56f5
That goes directly into most of what I will presume is exactly the kind of thing that is going to be the next phase in your journey. Getting old yeast to work.
The other place to go for them is on the market for old unopened bottles from shipwrecks, which will still involved going to someone like say, Omega yeast. Who is mentioned in the artifact beer article, and would likely be extremely interested in your project anyways.

 

Contact the yeast suppliers to see what they have in their yeast banks. Siebel Institute also has a yeast bank.

 

Maybe a source would be to contact a brewer who recreates historical beers. Such a brewer has probably already found a source for the yeasts that you'd want. One brewery that I know of is Archival Brewing in Belmont, MI. I think there are a few others around the country too.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/61642/

 

Maybe the resurrected yeast strain TUM 35 would be of interest to you:

“69 March / April 2019 (Vol. 72) BrewingScience

Authors

https://doi.org/10.23763/BrSc19-06hutzler

M. Hutzler, L. Narziß, D. Stretz, K. Haslbeck, T. Meier-Dörnberg, H. Walter, M. Schäfer, T. Zollo,

F. Jacob and M. Michel

Resurrection of the lager strain Saccharomyces pastorianus TUM 35 Saccharomyces pastorianus lager yeast strains are some of the most important industrially used microbes used in fermentations. Lager beer types dominate the market with over 90 % of the market share. Although some popular and widespread lager strains, such as the most used strain Saccharomyces pastorianus TUM 34/70, are well characterized, little or nothing is known about old and seldom used lager strains from long-standing strain collections. Only two Saccharomyces pastorianus lager strain subgroups are known to date, ‘Frohberg’ and ‘Saaz’. Most industrial, modern, high-performance lager strains belong to the ‘Frohberg’ group. In this study our group reactivated a freeze-dried stock of a yeast culture (carrier matrix unknown, probably dry milk powder) of the historic strain TUM 35. The strain was presumed to have been lost over time.

Fortunately, the freeze-dried stock was found in a forgotten box in a storage room (together with other historic strains) at the Research Center Weihenstephan for Brewing and Food Quality. TUM 35 grew after two weeks of applying a tailored reactivation protocol in liquid wort. This paper presents research on the history of the strain TUM 35. Its journey could be traced back from Freising-Weihenstephan to Nuremberg and to its origin Coburg in upper Franconia. Its history also revealed why this formerly very successful old yeast strain disappeared completely in the mid to late 1950s. We also confirmed the species using specific qPCR systems with marker DNA-regions for S. pastorianus identification. PCR-capillary electrophoresis of the IGS2-314 rDNA fragment showed the close relation to the strain TUM 34/70 but also the subtle differences in the DNA-fingerprint pattern. Phenotypic experiments and beer fermentation trials at volumes of 30 L could prove that TUM 35 performed like a typical Frohberg-type lager strain. It produced a straight, neutral and soft aroma profile in the final beer with a high degree of fermentation. Results of fermentation by-product analysis and other main beer parameters of the beer produced with TUM 35 lie within the specifications and reference values for Frohberg-type lager beers. In contrast to most other lager beer strains, TUM 35 produced no sulfuric aromas that could be sensed by the tasting panel in the final beer. This study is a first approach to improve the understanding of old lager beer yeast strains and also opens up opportunities for breweries to use forgotten old strains for standard or historic lager beer production.”

https://www.researchgate.net/public...1YmxpY2F0aW9uIiwicGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIn19

Cheers!