I was amazed at how fast this yeast took off after getting it into a 1,000 ml starter on a stir plate. Within an hour it was foaming like crazy. After another few hours it showed it’s flocculation potential as it was incredibly chunky already (see video). I’m talking like WLP002 cottage cheese lava lamp type of starter. The yeast started out aggressively and finished quickly, I kegged this beer 8 days after brewing it and because it was on hops the whole time I didn’t need any extra time to dry hop it (although I did add more hops to the keg). After racking the beer into a keg, the yeast cake was really thick and spongy. I had to turn the garbage disposal on to get it down the drain (see picture).

The beer had a great soft serve ice cream type of head that stuck around. It’s one of the better head retention beers I’ve brewed in a while (spelt flour?). The aroma is big, but it’s definitely different than what I’m used to in hoppy beers. I’m not sure what aroma characteristics came from the yeast alone, but overall it leans more overripe fruit than bright fresh fruit. The aroma is a little hard to place exactly; I can pick out pear, pineapple and little bit caramel green apple candy. This is definitely a strange hop combination. The mouthfeel is nice and creamy, slightly thick. There is a strong hop oily character to each sip that really coats your mouth. This is the second time I’ve noticed this when using El Dorado, which I speculate has something to do with the high total oil content of the hop, which is noticeably higher than most hops (2.5-2.8 ml/100g). There is an alcohol warmth in the aftertaste that I could do without. Clarity seems to be where this yeast strain shines. Because it was so flocculant, this beer cleared up incredibly well after just a short time in a keg with no finings (although my picture doesn’t really show this well.) I’d say it clears up even better than WLP002, which I’ve had a lot of experience with. My one complaint with this yeast is I noticed a slight plastic taste, which I’m curious if any others that have used this strain experienced.

Overall not my favorite beer, but definitely drinkable. To really evaluate this yeast strain properly, I probably should have brewed something with less hops and more of a traditional brewing style (like not using spelt flour, dry hopping prior to adding yeast, and a short 30 minute boil), but that would be boring! I’m guessing the “unique fruitiness” Omega advertises for this yeast is where I’m getting the green apple characteristic (update: others have reported the yeast having lemon-lime citrus qualities, which I could see as being slightly similar to the green apple candy that I experienced) although that’s hard to be confident about with how heavily hopped it was.

I think this yeast has potential, especially for a homebrewer that doesn’t have fermentation temperature control yet. I’ve tasted a lot of beers at homebrewer meetings that didn’t use fermentation temperature control and probably should have and I’d take the beer this yeast produces over some of those! Having said that, for my pallet I’d much rather use an English strain like London Ale III or WLP002 in a hoppy beer like this. I did want to make sure I tested the limits on the hot side of the fermentation temperature claim for the yeast so I kept the beer in our storage room in the loft that had a temperature range of 77-82F.

Overall, it’s a fast working aggressive strain that is extremely flocculant. It produced a drinkable beer with no fermentation control, but I just didn’t like this hop combination (my fault) combined with an alcohol warmth and that apple/plastic taste. The fermentation was similar to a more traditional strain going from a 1.060 OG to 1.012 FG, but the final beer’s pH of 4.26 might be a little low for the style (I just recently tested Tree House Brewing Julius and the pH was closer to 4.5).