Ok, this will be a contentious one. That said, I feel i must weigh in. Many posters here on AHB have negative views of Coopers and Mauri 514. And fair 'nuff really, as they probably got stung on their early K+K brews. However, I have to point out that there are multiple small brewers internationally who choose 514 as their house yeast.
I took the time to email one such brewery in the past, and received this reply: " We pitch the yeast at 20C and hold it at that temperature until fermentation is close to complete. (with the mauri yeast this was between 72 and 96 hours) At which point we would drop to 12C for 48 hours and then down to 7C for 24 hours to clear out. The reason we decided on another yeast was the fact that i had problems with the yeast dropping out. Due to the set up at our brewery we have been unable to skim yeast (off) the top, so instead we let it settle to the bottom. Having the beer sitting on top of the yeast adds to the flavour anyway. Only problem was that the mauri yeast didn't pack tightly to the bottom remaining loose and partly in suspention. Therefore when casking our beer we had quite a lot of yeast going in which became a struggle to clear even with isinglass finings. I can also note that we have achieved better head retention with other yeasts. Otherwise the flavour profile is pretty good, quite fruity when fermented at slightly higher temperatures (23-24C - prior to our thermostatic temperature controls being installed). Towards the end of fermentation it gave off a quite pungent sulphur smell. This dissipated almost every time once casked, vented and cellared for a couple of days. Not sure how it would do sealed in a keg or bottle. So in short, I would suggest that if you were going to use this yeast you skim off the top to help with clarity. Otherwise i would say the yeast was quite consistent in producing clean tasting beers."
*Bold emphasis my own.
So there you have it, an international micro has mainly positive things to say about our "bread yeast" and they are not alone.
Additionally, I have recently been honing my house pale ale (a low gravity, dry finishing PA) and have used Coopers dry for the last half dozen batches. At first it was for repeatabilities sake, but TBH I have grown attached to the character of Coopers dried yeast - cheap; quick starting; ~76%AA; unobtrusive but subtly fruity aroma/flavour; less "stripping" than Notto; more interesting than 05.
