Brewers make the wort, yeast make the beer.

Yeast are instrumental in the outcome of a brew, each imparts its own touch to the taste, clarity and alcohol content. If not treated correctly some strains will will throw esters, leaving you with a fruity banana-peachy mess, others will create fusel alcohols, making your batch murder to drink. This page is a log of the good and bad I have observed from the strains I’ve used.

 

Yeast	Rating	Notes
Danstar BRY-97	🙂	Very long lag time to start when using dry packet. Using subsequent harvested yeast with a starter resulted in very fast starts and a clean finish. Flocculates nicely after ~3 weeks on a 1.5 OG beer and typically attenuates better than predicted by calculations.
Danstar Nottingham	🙂	Very long lag time to start when using dry packet. After 2 weeks on the C3CA beer it has a very strong sulfur smell. Final result was super clean with no flavor imparted by the yeast.  It was somewhat difficult to work with as the the target temperature range is difficult to maintain without a fermentation chamber and does add a tartness to the finished been when fermented too warm.
Mangrove Jack’s M-36	🙂	Minimal lag time when using dry packet. Using subsequent harvested yeast with a starter resulted in very fast starts. Flocculates nicely after ~3 weeks on a 1.65 OG beer and typically attenuates to match calculation or better.
Safale S-05	😳 Don’t use this.	Can produce a decent beer, but most often produces peachy esters which cannot be aged out of a beer. Does not flocculate and results in a cloudy beer without finings.
White Labs WLP001	😐	Tried this in three different batches and the esters overpowered two of the beers after bottle conditioning. The third was a rye pale ale, which is the only reason I think it may have not been outdone by the yeast. Overall, I am not a fan.
Wyeast 1028 London Ale	🙂	Used this in a Christmas Ale and a Rye Pale Ale and find it to be a pleasant strain. Esters are mild, but compliment the Christmas Ale very well. Overall attenuation is lower than the M36 or BRY-97, strains I typically use, but that is not the goal of this yeast.
Red Star Premier Blanc Yeast	?	Formerly named Red Star Champagne Yeast. I’ve recently added this to my Houblon Bourreau v2 to fix a stuck fermentation.