Timothy Taylor's Landlord is a famous English Bitter which I've never had the opportunity to try. The brewery is very forthcoming with their recipe (single malt a a few varieties of hops) and there seems to be a fairly high degree of confidence that their yeast strain is the Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale. Given this, it seems like a beer that could be readily cloned.
The yeast strain, and the method of handling it, is pretty interesting. It produces a krausen that sticks around for quite a bit longer than most yeast (several weeks). The brewery uses a square fermenter and ends up sweeping/top cropping the krausen off the beer after several days (really recommend the fascinating video provided by the brewery). I experienced the long krausen but ended up just letting it sit until it dropped. I kegged at about 5 weeks. Overshot OG, and FG by 3 points on each and hit the ABV intended. Kegging went well (no issues with the yeast) and the beer has poured clear right from the start.
I've been drinking this for several weeks now and it's well carb'd and drinking great. Hop flavor and aroma wonderful on tapping the keg and basically the same at this point.
High time for a tasting
Tasting Notes:
- Aroma:
- Sweet malt which is like graham cracker and honey. Also get a bit of fruit - indistinct - maybe peach or orange possibly. Some herbal hop character as well
- Appearance:
- Pours with a 1 finger head that fades to a thin layer over several minutes and then lingers. Leaves lacing on the glass. It is dark gold in color and very clear. Very close in color to the real beer (based on pictures only)
- Flavor:
- Sweet bready malt with a bit of caramel up front. Finishes with a fairly firm bitterness which is very nicely balanced by the malt. The flavors linger. There is a good amount of hop flavor in the mix as well. It is grassy and herbal as well as having a citrus quality (orange again and fairly subtle). I'm not sure I can pick out on anything I would describe as yeast ester.
- Mouthfeel:
- Medium-light bodied with only a hint of sweetness. Smooth and easy drinking. It really calls for another sip.
- Overall:
- A really drinkable beer with a lovely balance between malt and hops. Nice flavors and good amount of complexity. I would say this is the best English Bitter I've made so far. I feel compelled to play around with this yeast some more as I suspect that it's playing a significant background roll in flavor profile (I don't believe this beer would taste as good with Chico yeast)
As mentioned in my comment on the brew-day post, I just made a similar beer. Or at least I thought it was similar; it seems that mine is much fruitier. Possibly just a matter of the natural variation between two bags of hops of the same variety, but I think the yeast contributed a fair bit of fruitiness as well (although I always find it hard to tell apart). Note that I pitched at 15 celsius and fermented at 16, so not really pushing for esters either!
ReplyDeleteI'm really pleased with the yeast: the beer is full bodied and round, without being sweet. I've never been able to taste the individual malty notes so clearly in any of my previous brews.
Glad to hear we both had good results with this one. Have you tried the real beer?
ReplyDeleteVery interesting on the fruit character. I do always wonder about hop crop variability - my Styrian Goldings didn't strike me as all that fruity to begin with. Also, such a complex beer I could see picking different stuff out if I were to do another thorough tasting and could imagine different people reading the same beer in different ways.
I'm mulling over the idea of trying this yeast in a bigger beer next. It seems like many of the other English strains become quite a bit more estery as the gravity goes up. Will be interesting to see if that's the case here as well.
Unfortunately, I haven't had the real beer yet. Seems impossible to get ouside of the UK.
DeleteI have used the same yeast in a porter and then in the primary fermentation of what will become a Flanders Red. I think that all three share a certain fruity note: it's rather bright (like unripe fruit), reminiscent of melon - not watermelon, but cantaloupe or honewdey. I think that would have to be a product of the yeast. But tbh I suck at picking out individual notes and attributing them to some origin.
Either way, it's an interesting yeast, and this beer came out great! Very complex considering the simple recipe and low ABV.