Imperial Yeast Returns to UK

[Brew_DD2]

The fantastic Imperial Yeast is now back on sale in the UK. Available at The Malt Miller.

 

[the_quick]

Hopefully other supplies will update their stock as well

 

[Rakey]

Just about to pitch some of the Whiteout into a Belgian Witt, it really is such a great yeast. Now has a 4 month life too.

 

[Clint]

What makes is so good?

 

[An Ankoù]

What makes is so good?

Yeah, what's so good about this yeast? Genuine question, I've never used it.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

It's a brand not a specific yeast.

 

[Rakey]

Yeah, what's so good about this yeast? Genuine question, I've never used it.

Goes off like a rocket, performs well. I've done side by side brews of my recipes using the strain from Imperial and compared it against Wyeast, Fermentum Mobile, White Labs and I just find the taste of the finished beer that I always prefer the batch fermented using Imperial Yeast.

 

[the_quick]

Most of the liquid yeast on the market comes with 100 Billion cells, imperial comes with double that. Personally I want to try Loki, but as kveik should be underpitched, I would probably only use part of the package.

 

[Brew_DD2]

As all of the above, comes with double the cells and my beers always taste better when I use their yeast. They also stock L17, the Augustiner Lager strain, and it is wonderful.

 

[marshbrewer]

Does that mean that if the yeast is in date, you can pitch into a 20L batch without making a starter?

 

[Brianbrewed]

I used their Stefon yeast in a Weizenbock recipe.
Took off like a rocket and left some very nice bubblegum/clove flavours.
No starter needed.

Highly recommend.

 

[user 18729]

Hmmm interesting! More bang for your buck sounds like a no brainer! Are the strains the same, as in wyeast/white labs use identical cultures but call them different things?

 

[MyQul]

Hmmm interesting! More bang for your buck sounds like a no brainer! Are the strains the same, as in wyeast/white labs use identical cultures but call them different things?

Even if they're similar, I wouldnt say they would be identical cultures. There's plenty of stuff on forums about wyeast and whitelabs strains that are supposed to be the same but show different characteristics

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Yeah, what's so good about this yeast? Genuine question, I've never used it.

The main pitch is 200 million cells versus 100 million from other brands, albeit at higher cost. And they're certified organic if that's important to you (but from memory White Labs Copenhagen is now organic but not their HQ).

And they have a couple of things that aren't easy to get otherwise - Joystick is a core strain for them, but Pacman is a rarely-released private ("vault") strain from Wyeast.

Also it seems that some of their strains haven't been mutating in the fridges of random US homebrewers for 20-odd years. In particular people seem to like Imperial A09 Pub over White Labs WLP002 and Wyeast 1968, apparently it actually has some of the proper Fuller's marmalade character which 002 and 1968 don't.

 

[user 18729]

The main pitch is 200 million cells versus 100 million from other brands, albeit at higher cost. And they're certified organic if that's important to you (but from memory White Labs Copenhagen is now organic but not their HQ).

And they have a couple of things that aren't easy to get otherwise - Joystick is a core strain for them, but Pacman is a rarely-released private ("vault") strain from Wyeast.

Also it seems that some of their strains haven't been mutating in the fridges of random US homebrewers for 20-odd years. In particular people seem to like Imperial A09 Pub over White Labs WLP002 and Wyeast 1968, apparently it actually has some of the proper Fuller's marmalade character which 002 and 1968 don't.

What’s their background then? How do they have such unique strains?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

What’s their background then? How do they have such unique strains?

Well the point is they have almost no (if any) "unique" strains. In some cases they appear to have "different" isolates from the "usual" sources - the Fuller's one is a case in point. But it's not exactly rocket science to harvest yeast from a Fuller's bottle or cask.

Some of it is merely a business decision to have something as a core strain that other labs chose to offer sporadically - Pacman is meant to be one of the nicer versions of the Chico family.

But you also have to understand that if White Labs or Wyeast were starting now, they probably wouldn't use the isolates they now offer. They started with strains that had been passed around the homebrew community in the US for years, quietly mutating away from the "original" brewery strain and in some cases getting mislabelled. But now they're stuck with them and at least have lots of knowledge about how they behave. Few brewers (on this side of the pond at least) would regard WLP002 as the best yeast to come out of the UK - but White Labs sell it by the bucket to people who have years of experience with it in 10,000+ litre fermenters and don't really want to risk changing it. If it did come from Fuller's originally, then the best you can say is that WLP002 no longer has the characteristic flavour of Fuller's yeast, it's lost that at some point in its history between first being harvested and getting banked by White Labs. You'll get very different behaviour from something that's in its first generation since being harvested from a Fuller's bottle/cask, and in the case of A09 Pub, that's what Imperial appear to have done.

 

[Leon103]

Had good results with their dry hop yeast and one of their lager yeasts

 

[Pennine]

Well the point is they have almost no (if any) "unique" strains. In some cases they appear to have "different" isolates from the "usual" sources - the Fuller's one is a case in point. But it's not exactly rocket science to harvest yeast from a Fuller's bottle or cask.

Some of it is merely a business decision to have something as a core strain that other labs chose to offer sporadically - Pacman is meant to be one of the nicer versions of the Chico family.

But you also have to understand that if White Labs or Wyeast were starting now, they probably wouldn't use the isolates they now offer. They started with strains that had been passed around the homebrew community in the US for years, quietly mutating away from the "original" brewery strain and in some cases getting mislabelled. But now they're stuck with them and at least have lots of knowledge about how they behave. Few brewers (on this side of the pond at least) would regard WLP002 as the best yeast to come out of the UK - but White Labs sell it by the bucket to people who have years of experience with it in 10,000+ litre fermenters and don't really want to risk changing it. If it did come from Fuller's originally, then the best you can say is that WLP002 no longer has the characteristic flavour of Fuller's yeast, it's lost that at some point in its history between first being harvested and getting banked by White Labs. You'll get very different behaviour from something that's in its first generation since being harvested from a Fuller's bottle/cask, and in the case of A09 Pub, that's what Imperial appear to have done.

Thanks for the great info/analysis!

I've used imperial a few times and have always been happy with the results, especially the Belgian yeast triple double. Glad to see maltmiller is carrying them.