Lost Colony Beer School 101
Yeast
Ask a beer geek about their favorite beer and 94.3%, a number I made up for this post, will mention hops first,6.8% will mention malt first and 0% mention yeast.
There was no need to make up stats. I have never been asked, “what is your yeast strain.”
Yeast does matter. It determines the temperature you ferment at, the crispness of taste, the flavors in the beer and the type of beer.
Lager yeast ferment at cooler temperatures than ale yeast. Lager yeast has few esters and helps produce crisp beers. Budweiser, Coors, Heineken, Miller, St Pauli, Moose Head etc.
Ale yeast works at higher temperatures and gives much more flavors to the beer. Guinness, New Castle, Fat Tire, all Lost Colony ales etc.
Breweries develop their own personal yeast strains they guard like the Coca Cola recipe. Others share theirs.
Not having the facilities nor, I will admit, the knowledge to develop my own, we brew with an English yeast strain from the now-defunct Whitbread Brewery.
Whitbread Ale yeast has a mildly malty and slightly fruity fermentation profile.
Whitbread Ale was served at a local pub in my NY neighborhood and helped steer my taste toward British ales. When I saw this strain was available it was an easy choice.
Oh, and by the way I know 94.3% and 6.8% do not equal 100. I just love to see who makes the correction in the comments. They are probably deleting them now that they finished reading this.
