Adding flavor by exploring yeast strains

Introduction of flavors by yeast during fermentation is not exactly unknown but it seems beer makers are well ahead of wine makers in exploring the possibilities. As mentioned in the link White Labs, in San Diego, has some 30+ beers on tap made in different styles with different yeast strains that can be tasted in flights to get an idea of just what the humble yeast can do. Looks like I have some beer tasting in my future!

Mike

[David M. Bueker]

Actually winemakers are ahead if you are looking to expression of place by using native instead of cultured/selected yeasts.

I went to Domaine Rabiega in Provence twenty years ago and tasted six very different red wines. It turned out that it was the same base wine made with six different yeasts.

Greetings from Sweden / Fredrik L

Here's an interesting chart of wine yeast strains and their properties: http://www.lallemandwine.us/products/yeast_chart.php

I might be talking nonsense but ....

Isn't beer all about the yeast?

What differs brands from each other is their proprietal yeasts.

Brands use basically the same ingredients so if you prefer Amstel over Heineken its because of the yeast each uses

International brands, such as Heineken and Carlsberg are brewed in different locations using local ingredients and water but all use the same yeast strain for the brand.

We buy beer by its brand, not the variety of the grass used, or the terroir of the field where its grown.

There are a huge number of commercial wine yeasts on offer, all offering some advantage especially enhancing or emphasising various flavour profiles. But the yeast strain used is rarely (never?) named in the technical details let alone the publicity that names most other components..

I might be talking nonsense but ....

Isn't beer all about the yeast?

You're talking nonsense, Peter What you say may be more true for a bland Euro lager like Heineken than for other beers but even setting aside beers made from grains other than barley and oddities like fruit-flavored beers and restricting ingredients to barley, hops, yeast and water, there is much more involved than just yeast. What kind of barley used in the malt? Roasted how? What kind of hops (there are myriad) and applied when in the beer making process? Strain of yeast is only one variable and as a determinant of beer flavor is not the primary one, let alone the only one.

What kind of hops (there are myriad).

And they are very aromatic, and very different. It was a real eye-opener when I was invited to smell a few different ones at a brewery.

Yeast play a supporting role it’s the quality of the raw material that are the “stars”.

Salute