Courage 1977 Silver Jubilee Ale (yeast)

[MyQul]

After being in the fridge for about 3 weeks I stepped this up again and put it in 700ml of 1.040 starter last friday. I was planning to step it up again tonight, brew tommorow and pitch it on wednesday. But this yeast seems to have taken ages to get going. It only started fermenting yesterday. But once it gets going it seems to go mad. Its got a massive krausen, the size of the whole body of starter wort on it

 

[marshbrewer]

Fascinating thread this. Have you had a taste of the resultant starter to see if it's an estery or clean yeast?

 

[MyQul]

Fascinating thread this. Have you had a taste of the resultant starter to see if it's an estery or clean yeast?

Yeah, I poured off the spent starter and put the yeast in the 700ml new starter. I then had a slurp of the spent starter. It was VERY fruity/estery. It tasted like dark fruits, kind of like cherries or black berries, that kind of fruit. However there was also an undercurrent of an off flavour that I havent tasted in a starter before.

All in all, my experience with this yeast is quite unlike any other yeast Ive used

 

[foxbat]

I wonder if it'll start to improve as you repeatedly reuse it either in a starter or beer. Like a survival of the fittest process weeding out the cells that aren't up to it.

 

[MyQul]

Well after taking ages to get going, it now doesnt want to stop. Its been over a week now since I put it in the 700ml and its still producing C02. It is tailing off though and Im going to put it in the fridge again for a while as I want to brew on Tuesday and I dont think it'll be ready as I think I need to do one more step up.
I m thinking this is a proper English Cask strain (a bit like the Fullers strain) as it's very floccuant and keeps producing lots of C02 which would normally be vented when casking

 

[MyQul]

I wonder if it'll start to improve as you repeatedly reuse it either in a starter or beer. Like a survival of the fittest process weeding out the cells that aren't up to it.

I might do. MJ CaliCommon strain does that. The first pitch takes ages to get going but re-pitched slurry in a starter has a normal lag time

 

[MyQul]

Just t o update the thread; After the 700ml finally finished fermenting I poured most of the spent wort off and put the yeast in a jar in the fridge. I of course tasted the spent wort. It had a strong medicinal/TCP taste, so it seems to have reacted with the chlorine in my water to create chloraphenols. Funny thing is Ive never had this off flavour before in either my beer or starter wort. In fact my water isnt that highly chlorinated as I often forget/dont bother to add any campden to my water. Im guessing the strain is particularly sensitive to chlorine or perhaps some sort of infection (although I havent read that infections can create this sort of off flavour)

 

[marshbrewer]

Hope it's ok! Do you know what you are thinking of pitching it into?

 

[terrym]

If anyone wants to duplicate MyQul's efforts, or just wants a an old bottle of beer to try or to keep I have two bottles of Ind Coope Jubilee Ale, a bottle of Matthew Brown Jubilee Ale and also a bottle of Burton on Trent Centenary Ale from 1978 brewed by Bass, all unopened. They aren't worth all that much on ebay and I had been wondering what to do with them. So if anyone wants one or more of them they come for free, but taker would have to reimburse me postage, and that would mean having a paypal account. I cannot say if any of them have yeast on the bottom.
If anyone is interested PM me and we can sort something out. First come first served.

 

[marshbrewer]

I received two bottles of Ind coope silvery jubilee ale on Saturday, that Terrym very generously sent me. They are in my garage in the cold, settling after their journey and I will then pluck up the courage to open them and recover the yeast. I'm in two minds weather to do this separately, so I have two attempts at yeast recovery, or both together in order to maximise the amount of yeast cells.

 

[MyQul]

Hope it's ok! Do you know what you are thinking of pitching it into?

Either a mild or a ordinary bitter, as that's all I seem to make nowadays

 

[dan125]

I received two bottles of Ind coope silvery jubilee ale on Saturday, that Terrym very generously sent me. They are in my garage in the cold, settling after their journey and I will then pluck up the courage to open them and recover the yeast. I'm in two minds weather to do this separately, so I have two attempts at yeast recovery, or both together in order to maximise the amount of yeast cells.

I was the lucky recipient of the other two bottles from @terrym
Hoping to try some yeast from one of these in an ordinary bitter.

 

[MyQul]

Thought I'd do a final update on this thread.

I've had the yeast in my fridge since the end of october wondering wether to do the final step up to pitchable amount.

Just to recap, the spent starter had a definate band aid taste. This of course could be from my water being highly chlorinated. But my water isnt very chlorinated at all. I usually dont even need to bother adding any campden tabs to my water and certainly not to a starter. The other possiblity is infection Which I think is the culprit. Whilst my kitchen isnt exactly laboratory conditions, I've never had a infected starter before (and I make a starter just about every brew nowadays). I think it's just the fact that the beer was over 40 years old.

So after much umming and ahhing I've decided to bin it. A bit sad as I quite like the romantacism of culturing up 40+ year old yeast. But on the positive side it shows it can be done, there was yeast in the bottle (despite the bottle not saying it was bottle cultured - but then again CAMRA would have been in it's infancy) and I have another 8 bottles of jubilee beer that came in the job lot of jubilee beers I bought

 

[marshbrewer]

Sad news indeed. Still haven't done anything with mine; I want to do a trial run with a modern bottle conditioned ale first, and predictably, the two candidates that I knew Tesco's stocked (Fuller's 1845 & Cooper's Pale) have disappeared from the shelves. Hoping to pick something suitable up this week in my travels for work.

 

[MyQul]

Sad news indeed. Still haven't done anything with mine; I want to do a trial run with a modern bottle conditioned ale first, and predictably, the two candidates that I knew Tesco's stocked (Fuller's 1845 & Cooper's Pale) have disappeared from the shelves. Hoping to pick something suitable up this week in my travels for work.

Try waitrose for 1845. I picked A bottle up a week or two ago. Bengal Lancer from Fullers is also bottle conditioned. The Gales strain is fantastic IMO and can be got out of a bottle of HSB from ASDA. And Of course have a look at the bottle conditioned beer list

 

[terrym]

....including SN 1698 from Asda in our area, with its own thread on here, and, certainly for me, unique fermenting activity
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/shepheard-neame-1698-yeast.60341/

 

[RussianStout]

A couple of years ago I cultured yeast from a bottle of Courage Russian Stout that was also approximately 45 years old.

My experience was similar to yours in that it ferments quickly, is VERY fruity and estery, and flocculates astonishingly well. It also contains Brettanomyces which will dry out your beer (and create gushers) if you leave it long enough.

It also seems to be a real top cropper with loads of beige gunk floating on the surface.