Vintage ale yeast

[Frog Morris]

I picked up a bottle of Tolly Cobbold Royal Wedding Ale from 1981 at an auction recently. There were not many other bidders. It was still drinkable and tasted like wedding cake. There was some sediment at the bottom of the bottle. As the beer was still good I was curious about the yeast. The beer tasted dry - rich but not sweet. I guessed the yeast had over the years continued to convert sugar until any sweetness had all but gone.

As an experiment I put a mix of malt extract and water into the bottle to see if any yeast was still alive. I didn't think it would be but I didn't have anything to loose except a few spoonfuls of malt. To my astonishment after 2 or 3 days in the airing cupboard it has started bubbling! Has any one else reactivated really old yeast for brewing? Should I make some new beer with it?

 

[marshbrewer]

I'd step the yeast up to a 2L starter, as per the instructions in this forum, and if the starter smells ok and doesn't taste off, risk making a simple pale ale or bitter with it to see what the yeast was like.

 

[Frog Morris]

Thanks for this.
I made up a bigger yeast started. I then made a small 1 gallon batch of a simple bitter (medium spray malt + target hops) to test the yeast. The fermentation appeared good and smelled and tasted right when I bottled it. I found an old recipe for a Tolly Cobbold Bitter in David Line's Brewing book so I have made up a full 25l of this today and transferred the Tolly yeast into this...

 

[marshbrewer]

Great news - let us know how it turns out.

 

[MrRook]

Flag porter is partly fermented with yeast salvaged from a beer that set in the bottom of the English channel for well over 100 years.

 

[NIGHTSKY BREWING]

Hi , I too would like to try save some yeast from a 1977 Whitbread silver jubilee ale .... would it work....????bottle has no ABV printed on label...

Cheers Matt NIGHTSKY

 

[Sadfield]

Hi , I too would like to try save some yeast from a 1977 Whitbread silver jubilee ale .... would it work....????bottle has no ABV printed on label...

Cheers Matt NIGHTSKY

What a coincidence. At a homebrew club meeting on Wednesday night we finished of with a bottle of this Ind Coope Jubilee Ale. The quickest thinking homebrewer there, recapped the bottle and took it home. They posted this picture on twitter yesterday reporting some activity in their starter.

Lovely drop too, that still held some carbonation.

 

[NIGHTSKY BREWING]

have a 1977 bottle with my name on it ...Matthew Brown Brewery coming next week from ebay.:UKflag:

 

[MyQul]

Just spotted (and then bought) 9 vintage ales from 1977 silver jubilee for £12. Collection only. Collection is where I work!! Whoo hoo!!!

No idea what exactly the ales are apart from what I can see in the picture but Im sure I be getting some interesting yeast strains

 

[Frog Morris]

So I have now opened my pressure barrel of Tolly Cobbold clone with the 1981 yeast and it tastes great! Very pleased with the results.

I have also saved a few bottles of yeasty beer so I can use it again in future brews. The yeast became lively very quickly during fermentation, I probably did not need to step it up as many times as I did.

In the lot I got a few other bottles of vintage ale. The two I have tasted were very rich so I've decided to put the other bottles away for Christmas. I will try and rescue more yeast when I open them...

 

[MyQul]

So I picked up the £12 haul of jubilee celebration ales. I got:

* Ind Coope - Silver Jubilee Strong Ale
* Wadworths - Silver Jubilee Queens Ale
* Hook Norton - Jubilee Stong Ale
* Gales - Silver Jubilee Ale
* Greene King - Jubilee Ale
* Arkells - Kingsdowne Ale
* Marstons - Silver Crown
*Courage - Silver Jubilee Ale
*Home Brewery - Jubilee Strong Ae

 

[Sadfield]

And they say craft brewers jump on bandwagons.

Nice haul. It would be interesting to see what a Greene King clone tastes like with that yeast.

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[MyQul]

And they say craft brewers jump on bandwagons.

Nice haul. It would be interesting to see what a Greene King clone tastes like with that yeast.

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I'll need to find a GK reciepe. My GW book doesnt have any GK reciepes in it

 

[Sadfield]

GREENE KING IPA 3.6% ABV
Greene King IPA is characterised by its hoppy taste and aroma that comes from the use of challenger and first gold hops, which are combined with pale and crystal malts.

Or go retro...

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2016/06/lets-brew-wednesday-1937-greene-king-ipa.html?m=1



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