Yeast recommendations for a Bass Mild?

[Scrattajack]

Hi all,

does anyone have a recommendation for yeast for a Bass Mild, please? The recipe is from Graham Wheeler. I'm guessing a Burton yeast would be the way to go but worried I'd end up with an IPA one, good for hops and useless for malt. Liquid or dried, not fussed.

Ta.

 

[starseeker]

Greg Hughes suggests,

Fermentis US05
White Labs 013 London
Wyeast 1318 London Ale 111

It would be good to hear how it goes :)

 

[Scrattajack]

Wyeast 1318 London Ale 111

Greg Hughes suggests,

Fermentis US05
White Labs 013 London
Wyeast 1318 London Ale 111

It would be good to hear how it goes :)

Thanks.

Wyeast 1318 is the most appealing of those suggestions, though it seems odd using a London strain on a Burton beer. Mind you, I googled it to see what it's based on and there are claims that it's a Boddingtons clone...

 

[Scrattajack]

In fact, on Wyeast's website, their description says,

"London Ale III is Wyeast's strain cultivated from the Boddington's brewery, long famous for their creamy pub ale. "

I'm confused...

 

[Northern_Brewer]

In fact, on Wyeast's website, their description says,

"London Ale III is Wyeast's strain cultivated from the Boddington's brewery, long famous for their creamy pub ale. "

No it doesn't - the lawyers of the yeast labs make sure that they are almost never seen to be using a brewery name to sell yeast, it's all done by nudges and winks. The Wyeast page for 1318 actually says :
https://wyeastlab.com/yeast-strain/london-ale-iii"Originating from a traditional London brewery, this yeast has a wonderful malt and hop profile. It is a true top cropping strain with a fruity, very light and softly balanced palate. This strain will finish slightly sweet. "

You have to take all the traditional attributions with a slight pinch of salt - many of the Wyeast and White Lab strains have their origins in homebrewers harvesting them, and there's plenty of scope for mixups and mislabellings, plus strains mutating away from the original - for instance WLP002 and 1968 are confidently said to be from Fuller's, but lack the marmalade-ness that is so characteristic of the actual Fuller's yeast.

The whole Boddies thing is a mess as well - they lost their original yeast when the brewery was bombed in WWII, they restarted production with a yeast from Yorkshire that gave crazy-high attenuations (over 90% in the heyday of the 1970s), then there are dark rumours that they lost their yeast at the start of the 80s, then when production of the cask was contracted to Hyde's the Boddies yeast never took to Hyde's kit and they ended up using the Hyde's yeast instead.

And of course they were bought in 1987 by Whitbread who had possibly the biggest yeastbank in the country.

There's been suggestions that 1318 has some kind of connection with Courage, either directly or indirectly, which at least would put it in the right city!

Going back to the OP, the traditional Burton yeasts traditionally had very high attenuation (which meant that there wasn't much sugar left for secondary fementation, which you don't want for export beers travelling a long way through the tropics). If you're wanting to be a purist about it then Brewlab are your best option - I don't know what the current status of their deal with Hop & Grape is, but they're still listing slopes for sale like their Burton.

WLP026 is a rare Vault strain that's probably the closest pitchable yeast, WLP023 would probably do. Or just use something like Notty (or even a saison strain, fermented cool), it's more in keeping with the cheap and cheerful ethos of mild....

 

[Scrattajack]

Thanks for the suggestions, corrections and history, all food for thought.

I'm certainly not a purist so will not go down the Brewlab route, this time it'll be WLP023. I aim to brew quite a lot of mild so will work through all the suggestions above. Chilly Saison yeast sounds fun...

 

[trueblue]

I have used WLP023 with Graham Wheelers recipe, the bitter not the mild, and it turned out a cracking beer very close to the real thing. The only think with this yeast it doesn't clear easy but there again my memory of Bass was always a slight hazy beer

 

[Scrattajack]

A bit late to report back I know, but this turned out very well and was one of my favourite brews to date. I'll definitely use WLP023 again though my current one (Boddingtons Mild, again Graham Wheeler) is fermenting away with WHC Labs Saturated yeast. They claim it's a Boddington strain...

 

[Northern_Brewer]

A bit late to report back I know, but this turned out very well and was one of my favourite brews to date. I'll definitely use WLP023 again though my current one (Boddingtons Mild, again Graham Wheeler) is fermenting away with WHC Labs Saturated yeast. They claim it's a Boddington strain...

Based on doubt on nothing more than that is the traditional attribution given to Wyeast 1318 London Ale III which is what Saturated is presumably a knock-off of - the name alone should give you reason to be sceptical.

It's certainly not the classic "Tadcaster" Boddies yeast that gave crazy-high attenuation through much of the mid-20th century. DNA sequencing has shown it's part of the Whitbread family, and it probably originates in a US homebrewer harvesting yeast from a Boddington's product like Pub Ale (what we knew as the short-lived Boddies Export in the 1990s) made at a Whitbread factory some time in the late 1990s or early 2000s. The rare Vault strain WLP038 Manchester is probably a closer match (and by all accounts is one of the best British yeasts in the Wyeast/White Lab lineups).

Ron Pattinson has transcribed a number of Boddies mild recipes, including Boddies 1939, Boddies 1987, Boddies ELM 1987 and Oldham 1987. Typical Northwest milds, in that they tend to have rather more crystal and less sugar than their West Midland counterparts.