Your Favorite Cream Ale Yeast

Whenever I make a cream ale I split my batch and ferment one with 34/70 in my fermentation fridge and one with us-05 at room temp. I'm always very happy with both and would prefer the us-05 because of its simplicity and nothing else really. Very similar beers in the end. I always mess with my hops tho, and haven't really picked a favorite yet.

 

I love my cream ale. Its just corn grits, 2 row, and 6 row, I think. Hopped toward the end of the boil with 3 Oz Crystal hops, fermented with US-05. Simple, cheap, easy, and delicious.

 

I had to look at my brewing notes for this one. My "house beer", if I have one, would be a blonde ale that uses Nottingham ale yeast. Not a cream ale but pretty close.

However, that recipe is from like almost 20 years ago. If I knew then what I know now, maybe I should in fact be trying something like Wyeast 1007 -- I love that yeast. Also, WLP810 altbier yeast isn't half bad either. Purely coincidentally, both of these can ferment well at about 60 F, which is ideal for a cream ale. I might need to run some more side-by-side experiments on this!!!

 

I have no cream ale experience, so take this advise with a grain of salt. If you want a neutral, lager-like profile I would recommend using W-34/70 warm. I have used this strain before in the low 60s and the turn around is always quick and the profile always neutral.

 

I would recommend Wyeast 2124 fermented in the 60's but the dry yeast equivalent of W-34/70 should work the same.

Cheers!

 

I'm noticing a lot of people recommending lager yeasts for a cream ALE. I've read conflicting information about this online, but my takeaway was that a cream ale is essentially an AAL fermented with ale yeast, then lagered. The counterpoint to the cream ale would be the California steam beer, which is fermented with a lager yeast at ale temperatures. Feel free to correct me here if I'm off base.

With that said, any clean fermenting, high attenuation ale yeast should work well. Pick your favorite and run with it.

 

WLP080 fermented at 67-68F. Great results.

 

It's all just beer. We can "cheat" if we wanna. Long as it tastes good and within expectations, that's what really matters IMHO.

 

I think of it as either ale brewed closer to lager temps or lager brewed closer to ale temps. But I think @dmtaylor has the right idea -- important thing is it tastes like a cream ale.

 

A cool ferment with US05 and Liberty hops throughout has always served me well for Cream Ale.

 

I've been using Wyeast 1335, not exactly to style but I enjoy the results. Sometimes I get crazy and throw in some crystal 10!

 

My point wasn't necessarily that you can't get out of style a little bit and do what you want. Heck, I mentioned that I used 3 Oz of hops in a 5 gallon batch for my cream ale, which should have minimal hop bitterness, flavor, or aroma. I was just pointing out that, to me, it seems like if you were to use a lager yeast, you'd end up with an AAL.

 

I recently used WLP007 in a cream ale because I wanted to grow up a culture and harvest slurry for other projects. I'm really happy with the way it turned out--it's nice and dry, like a cream ale should be (1.007) with just enough yeast character to add some interest.

 

WLP007 is more attenuative and a little cleaner, but I think S-04 would be plenty tasty. If you mashed low and kept the fermentation temperature in the low 60s to avoid excessive esters you might get similar results. Another benefit of S-04 is that it ferments extremely quickly.

 

Out of curiosity I went back to look at Brewers Friend to see what % attenuation I got for my last batch with S-04 vs what I got with 007.

I got 79% with 04 and 80% for 007. So CLEARLY 007 is more attenuative

 

Timing!

https://www.beeradvocate.com/mag/14...on-brewing-a-pre-prohibition-style-cream-ale/

 

Drew, you can tell us: did you get Barry to start this thread as a teaser!?!

Cheers!