Reculturing Mountain Goat Yeast

[KoNG]

i have only ever seen it in melbourne... a tasty beer too, but not hoppy enough for my liking. tastes like the dupont yeast. they have it at cloudwine http://www.cloudwine.com.au/ and you can do single bottle orders, but might as well get the proper dupont if you're going to do that. better still just brew your own saison!

neon, the actual reason behind my asking, was yes to try the beer, but also and mainly to grab the yeast..

 

[warrenlw63]

The guys came down for our H.O.P.S. meet two weeks ago.
Dry yeast in all of their beers. Safale US-05 on the hightail ale. Funnily enough Cascade hops on this one.
Didn't ask about the IPA but why'd you use a different one?

Reculturing seems not worth the effort.

MFS.

Presume you're talking about the Goat Army folk here - US-05? Affraid you were told porkies - they use 1028 in the Hightail. And cascade? Ummm... :huh:
...Perhaps you're mistaking the Pale Ale? This is reputedly brewed with a US Ale yeast, and would likely use Cascade.

Hey guys I shot them a message via their website... Can be read here. Read down to up to make more sense of it. Not sure of what he meant by saying repitch after filtering it out? (unless he meant reseed??) :unsure:

Warren

Yes the Hightail yeast in the bottle is the original one. We don't
filter it out and re pitch.

Cheers

Cam



Cam Hines
Co-founder, owner.

Mountain Goat Brewery
Corner North & Clark Streets
Richmond, VIC 3121
Australia
ph 03 9428-1180
www.goatbeer.com.au

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


On 14/04/2008, at 4:06 PM, wwhite wrote:

> This is a Goat web site enquiry email from warren
> Hi just wondering if the yeast in your most excellent Hightail Ale
> is the same yeast you use for bottling... ie; is the beer filtered
> and re-seeded with a more flocculent variety?
> Just a nosy homebrewer who wants to make something similar to
> Hightail.

neon, the actual reason behind my asking, was yes to try the beer, but also and mainly to grab the yeast..

Agreed guys. A really lovely drop. Not totally Dupont in stature per se but a nice middle ground and highly drinkable. Good to see a local micro cutting the mustard with the added bonus of some nice fresh exotic yeast in the bottom of the bottle.

Warren -

 

[sam]

Presume you're talking about the Goat Army folk here - US-05? Affraid you were told porkies - they use 1028 in the Hightail. And cascade? Ummm... :huh:
...Perhaps you're mistaking the Pale Ale? This is reputedly brewed with a US Ale yeast, and would likely use Cascade.

Actually, I believe they've switched from 1028 to dried (sounds like US-05), some time in late 07 or early 08. This would be across the board, except for their specialties. And from tasting the Hightail, I'm pretty sure it's got Cascade floating around in there somewhere.

Sam

 

[geoffi]

Actually, I believe they've switched from 1028 to dried (sounds like US-05), some time in late 07 or early 08. This would be across the board, except for their specialties.

Sam

It would seem a bit of a waste of time to reculture yeast from a bottle only to get US-05. Not that it's a bad yeast, but when a nice fresh sachet costs about $3...

 

[neonmeate]

neon, the actual reason behind my asking, was yes to try the beer, but also and mainly to grab the yeast..

well yeah it would work out as expensive as buying some wlp565...
camperdown cellars has recently got some hargreaves hill (another vic micro) in, wonder if they would be into getting some temple - i might ask em next time im in.
the chevalier saison is also worth getting although i get the impression this one has some added lacto or something (intentional or not!)

 

[therook]

Nothing to do with there yeast but the hops they use in the Hightale are POR and US cascade and in there IPA are Pacific Gem and NZ Cascade, this was straight from Cam's mouth when they had there tour last year.

Rook

 

[pmolou]

Rook[/quote]

just clone the temple's E.S.B if you want an english strain and sure there are heaps of others other than mountain goat,
PS: wonder why they changed to US-05, wouldnt that change the taste and so on

 

[KoNG]

Neon, cool, post back if they get it in. Agreed i can buy the smack pack. But hey, i can also try and support an oz micro. Taste a new beer and yeh also hopefully get some useful yeast. Win win win.

rook. Maybe i'm confusing something here. But i thought thought the hightail was hallertau? Or is that pale ale and a different beer?

 

[therook]

Neon, cool, post back if they get it in. Agreed i can buy the smack pack. But hey, i can also try and support an oz micro. Taste a new beer and yeh also hopefully get some useful yeast. Win win win.

rook. Maybe i'm confusing something here. But i thought thought the hightail was hallertau? Or is that pale ale and a different beer?

G'day Kong, Don't take my word for gospel, they may have been telling me porkies but i dont think they were.

Rook

 

[warrenlw63]

Maybe they add Horny Goat Weed? B)

Warren -

 

[KoNG]

My bad, i thought the hightail was the name for the pale ale.
website reveals they are 2 different beers.

Also mentions.. imported US yeast

 

[Hutch]

I'll be dissapointed if they have switched to US-05 in the hightail. Great drop, though I've not had it for several months - might have to sample some more on tap to confirm. I can't actually understand why they would, both from a quality and cost point of view. Surely repitching gallons of 1028 slurry a few times is more cost-effective than 100's of grams of US-05 in each batch? Yeah, surely repitching has its risks, and adds a little time to the brew process, but they're old hands at that.

...and I was sure it was Hallertau all the way in the Hightail - I certainly don't taste Cascade in there anyway.
The Pale Ale is a different story. I'd be surprised if they were deliberately spreading misinformation - particularly amongst avid brewers.

 

[mfdes]

Be disappointed. No, I'm not confused, we were given the hightail ale. It was the two owners that told us in a room full of people: US-05 for yeast and US-cascade for finishing hops.
The results are justified. I could not tell the difference between the new, US-05 version and the old one.
The reason I asked them was that it actually tasted very English to me. Mind you, I've had experiences with Cascade where their predominantly Fuggle ancestry is clearly obvious, especially when grown in NZ and Tassie.
MFS.

 

[Ross]

I'll be dissapointed if they have switched to US-05 in the hightail.

If the beer tastes great, why would you be dissapointed?
I'm sure the Goat is making the best beer they believe they can & any changes would be for an improved product & certainly most on this thread appear to love it

Cheers Ross

 

[neonmeate]

IMO the english yeast character was the only thing the hightail had going for it...

 

[Hutch]

If the beer tastes great, why would you be dissapointed?
I'm sure the Goat is making the best beer they believe they can & any changes would be for an improved product & certainly most on this thread appear to love it

Cheers Ross

Ross, I agree - most on this thread, including myself enjoy the Goat beers - But if they have recently swapped over to US-05 then perhaps our opinions MAY well change???
I'm "dissapointed" because every second beer these days (home brewed or commercial) seems to resort to US-05. Fine in APA's (although 1056 in my experience is "cleaner"), but somewhat out of character in "English" Pales (as Hightail is supposed to be).

MFS, did Dave and Cam give particular reasons for switching to US-05 in the Hightail?
It just doesn't make sense that seasoned brewers would suddenly switch from a tried-and-true liquid to any dry yeast (irrespective of the change this would have on the beer). I might have to pop in and have a chat with them, and some "quality control" while I'm there

Cheers Hutch.

 

[mfdes]

Hi Hutch:
The reasons given were that liquid yeasts were giving them more issues with consistency than the dry yeast! They seemed to think dry was producing as good a product under their setup (I can vouch for that).
I should also say I was very surprised to hear "US-05" and "Cascades". The comment from all tasters (before we heard this) was along the lines of "wow, the first Australian beer I've ever tasted that tastes like a proper bitter!"
All this talk about being disappointed without having tried it and compared seems a bit ridiculous...

MFS.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Seriously??

IMO it never tasted particularly English, the cascades were always there and no mistake - even if they come out quite differently than they do in a standard APA - and its been US 05 for really quite some time now, if you have had the beer in the last six months (probably longer), you had it made with the 05.

And why would that be a bad thing?? The Chico strain is popular because its good and the thing that people have with dried yeast is just ridiculous ... hundreds of great commercial breweries across the world brew with dried yeast. Hell the brewery that makes ratebeer's "best beer in the world" uses bloody fermentis dried yeast when it needs to renew a culture.

Good beer is good beer - if they make it by hocking a loogie into the fermentor before they transfer in, who gives a ****?

 

[neonmeate]

ok firstly, I think I can categorically state that westvleteren do not use US-05.

secondly, yes i had this beer before and after the yeast change and definitely noticed the difference. you can't tell me there isn't a difference between the flavour of US05 and 1028?
Back in the early 2000s I could swear they used fuggles/goldings type hops in it too? Anyway it certainly used to have nice English-yeast esters that it doesnt have anymore.

Not that I have anything against US05 - it's useful stuff. But a yeast you use when you don't want to taste yeast.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Not Westvleteren, Struise.

I miss-typed, not their best beer in the world (The Black Albert only comes in at #4) but their best "Brewer" in the world. My bad, sorry.

You are a better palate than me if you could pick the yeast change in the Hightail out. Its not that I'm saying the beer hasn't changed, been drinking it for years now and it definitely has - it changed when they changed yeasts, it changed when they changed breweries, it changed when they upsized their fermentors, it changes from batch to batch because they (like most other micros) don't have great consistency and most noticeably it changes from venue to venue because of the handling practices of the pub and the length of time and conditions under which it has been stored in bottles.

To be perfectly honest, one of the features of hightail for me is that it is a good base beer that I like the general profile of, but but I am always interested to see what it tastes like "this week". The changeability is much less noticable if you drink it at the brewery though, which is why I mainly point the finger at handling once its been distributed.

If you can pick the particular change that was wrought by the change from a not particularly estery yeast to a "clean" yeast out of that little lot... get you to a competition, they need good judges.

It certainly changed about 8-12 months ago - because for the previous 12 months I couldn't drink the stuff because it was riddled with diacetyl every time I tasted it. If getting rid of that was the result of the yeast change, then I say thank god. But it probably wasn't that. It could have been anything.

I wonder what will change now that they have a brand new head brewer?? I bet its tasteable if you really go looking for it... but I probably wont notice it.