Author: Marshall Schott

I picked up my first vial of WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast nearly 3 years ago on a whim, hadn’t read/heard much about it, just saw a fairly fresh vial in the local shop and figured I’d give it a shot. The first time I used it was in the first batch of Tiny Bottom Pale Ale, in fact I designed that beer to be of moderate gravity in order to build up a yeast cake to pitch fresh wort onto (a practice I never do these days). I attributed the deliciousness of that ale to the yeast, started using it in nearly all of my American ales, and began encouraging others to try it out. Cut to the present and I’ve easily fermented more beer with 090 than any other strain, I even took a single vial out 17 generations by harvesting from starters, and it still performed fantastically!

I became curious what the origins of this yeast were. Information and even opinions on 090 were tough to find back then, as it wasn’t nearly as popular as it is today. Given the descriptive name, many folks initially speculated it was Stone Brewing Company’s house yeast, which seemed reasonable since it had been rumored they used something similar to WLP007 Dry English Ale yeast– both strains are known to ferment fast, flocc well, drop clear, and leave some residual malt character while hanging onto hop flavor and aroma. This theory quickly lost steam as homebrewers began receiving convincing confirmation from brewers at Stone that 090 is certainly not their house yeast. Then at some point, White Labs explained they named the strain San Diego Super Yeast because that’s where White Labs is located, it apparently had nothing to do with the source being a brewery from the same region.

Yeah, right.

Chatter among regular users of this strain began to arise, most of us unwilling to ditch the idea that it did likely come from a local brewery. People began comparing their 090 fermented beers with certain beers produced in San Diego and one particular brewery seemed to be getting the most focus: Port Brewing Company. I immediately ran out to buy a bomber each of Wipeout IPA and Mongo IPA, which I compared to an IPA I had on tap. For the first time, I was tasting beers that had an incredibly similar yeast character to the beers I’d been making with 090. I privately convinced myself Port was the source… then left it alone for a couple years.

While perusing the shelves of my local big box liquor store a few months back, I noticed a fresh bottle of Wipeout IPA in the cooler, which I purchased and enjoyed that evening.

It wasn’t until the final pour that I noticed a layer of yeast at the bottom of the bottle– this beer is bottle conditioned? This beer is bottle conditioned! That means I can propagate the yeast, split a batch, and compare Port’s yeast to WLP090, woohoo!!!

Inspired by all the stories I’ve read about people building up Conan yeast from cans of Heady Topper, I got to propin’ that evening by making a small starter and pitching the Wipeout dregs. I know some folks start with a much smaller volume when propagating from bottle dregs, I chose to use ~900mL of 1.025 wort. There was noticeable action within 18 hours.

Fermentation seemed to be complete after a couple days, so I turned the stirplate off and let whatever yeast had built up settle out. I was rather pleased with the results.

I decanted the beer and pitched the yeast slurry into about 1700mL of fresh 1.040 SG wort to step it up.

This time, things looked very familiar, with the starter showing signs of fermentation within 12 hours and developing a more milky appearance.

I let this starter spin for a few days then turned the stir plate off to let the yeast settle out.

I was curious about attenuation and decided to take a hydrometer reading.

1.040 to 1.010, 75% apparent attenuation, not too shabby! This was looking more and more promising. I decanted the spent starter beer and poured the yeast into a mason jar for use in an upcoming batch.

The jar of yeast remained refrigerated for almost 2 weeks until I got back to it. I made starters for both the Port yeast and WLP090, adding an extra quart to each for harvesting. The 090 starter was huge because I used it for an unrelated batch as well.

The jars I pulled off for future use looked slightly different after about 15 minutes.

I split a batch of Tiny Bottom Pale Ale using EKG in place of Fuggles (I’ll never do that again), I thought it only fitting since it was the first beer I ever fermented with 090. The wort was produced using my typical batch sparge process, chilled quickly with my King Cobra IC, racked into 3 gallon Better Bottles, then placed in my ferm chamber.

When the wort reached 64°F, I pitched the yeast and engaged my ale fermentation profile on The Black Box temperature controller.

While both beers were demonstrably active within 12 hours, the 090 batch seemed to be going a tad stronger than the Port batch.

By the following day, all seemed equal between the 2 beers, even the krausen looked pretty similar, which I guess isn’t necessarily all that meaningful.

A few days later, fermentation activity on both beers appeared to have slowed considerably, so I took a hydrometer sample.

As expected based on prior experience, the WLP090 beer was sitting at the target FG of 1.010 while, disappointingly, the beer fermented with the Port Brewing yeast was at 1.017. They also tasted different…

…whatever, I’d tasted beer a bit too early before that ended up getting better with a few more days on the yeast cake. I let it sit another week before giving it another sample.

What in the world had I created? Frankly, the beer fermented with yeast I’d built up from Port Brewing bottle dregs tasted like chode slathered in fart drippings (I’m only guessing). It was terrible! The bitterness was nearly unpalatable, it smelled like a faulty catalytic converter, it was murky. Everything about this beer was bad. In nearly 300 batches over years of homebrewing, I’ve never made a batch bad enough to dump. Alas:

I always thought I’d feel terrible if ever it came to this, like I was pouring money drenched in blood, sweat, and tears down the drain. I didn’t. I felt like I was doing myself and the pals I share my beer with a favor. A huge favor. Eww barely begins to describe my experience tasting this stuff.

So then, how does Port Brewing make such tasty beer using this yeast? Well…

This fuck-up was totally my fault, I kind of knew it would result in failure. You see, I left something out earlier, something that could have, perhaps should have, put the kabosh on this whole experiment. I actually emailed Port Brewing Company in-between propagating the yeast and pitching it into the Tiny Bottom wort. The conversation was simple:

Me: I’m curious if Port uses separate yeasts for bottle conditioning and fermentation?

Port Rep: We do use different yeasts for fermentation and for bottling conditioning.

I asked about the source of both strains, we engaged in a very brief back-and-forth that ultimately left me with nothing of value. I am super curious where this bottle conditioning strain comes from, as Port’s carbonation is spot on and their beers taste nothing like the beer I dumped. Regardless, I’m not yet convinced WLP090 doesn’t originate from Port Brewing, their beers do share a very similar yeast character as those I’ve made and tasted that were fermented with 090. What I am absolutely certain of is that the yeast at the bottom of Port Bottles is definitely not my beloved San Diego Super Yeast.

So there you have, an xBmt failed, likely the first of many. If you know something I don’t about this delicious yeast strain, please do share!

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