White Labs WLP059 Melbourne Ale yeast to be released

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I just sampled a sneaky 1913 Tooheys Standard Pale on kegging.

It had been in cold conditioning in FV for about a week at 1 degree, then biofine into keg for another 10 days. So after about a schooner of murk it's pouring bright. I still can't believe that with a kilo of sugaz this beer is so full bodied and malty.
I'm also picking up the catty notes you still get from a lot of the traditional brews like VB and XXXX.
 
Got my baby spinning up, ready for pitching in a few days.
Gratuitous shot of the Yeast Forge - awesome piece of kit!
IMG_5003.jpg

First beer will be an Aussie Bitter, waiting patiently in a cube.
Currently thinking I might try a malty Munich2-heavy beer with perle+saaz & 15% sugar.
Then something like a Belgian Blonde, but with 059 & ~15% sugar, to target ~6.5-7%alc.
Probably followed by an Amber-ish IPA (mongrel brew from Vic July case swap) & a stout/RIS (also from the case swap).
 
Thought I'd mention that I was at Grain & Grape yesterday for a gas swap and had a bit of a moment with their sample taps. One of the beers there was called Melbourne Ale and it mentioned it was brewed using WLP059. I asked if they had the recipe, and when they gave it to me, I saw that it was the Melbourne Sparkling Ale from the Bronzed Brews book. It was very drinkable, and I noticed that slight bubblegummy taste a few have mentioned here. Wasn't anywhere near as dry as I expected considering it uses nearly 1kg of table sugar. Nice and malty. I think I'm going to brew it!
 
Thought I'd mention that I was at Grain & Grape yesterday for a gas swap and had a bit of a moment with their sample taps. One of the beers there was called Melbourne Ale and it mentioned it was brewed using WLP059. I asked if they had the recipe, and when they gave it to me, I saw that it was the Melbourne Sparkling Ale from the Bronzed Brews book. It was very drinkable, and I noticed that slight bubblegummy taste a few have mentioned here. Wasn't anywhere near as dry as I expected considering it uses nearly 1kg of table sugar. Nice and malty. I think I'm going to brew it!
Is that the recipe on page 281, the Tooth's Crystal Ale?
 
Is that the recipe on page 281, the Tooth's Crystal Ale?
Does it use any crystal?
(actually a serious question - it sounds like 059 leaves a crystal like effect in the beer, so wondering if it's that combined with base malts, or if there's actual crystal in it)


On another note, has anyone used Biscuit or Aromatic in a 059 beer yet? If so, how did it affect the beer, in your opinion?
I'm curious as to how they'd perform under this yeast, or any of the other toasty elements (victory, amber) or heavy-malty elements (Munich2 or melanoiden). Otherwise i'll have to broaden that horizon myself...
 
Does it use any crystal?
(actually a serious question - it sounds like 059 leaves a crystal like effect in the beer, so wondering if it's that combined with base malts, or if there's actual crystal in it)
..
No crystal, I think its called that in order to appeal to the drinker visually. That actual recipe does not call for WLP059 but its the only one I could find on a quick flick through of which would be as @mblackam described of nearly a kilo of sugar. Curious to know the if it is the same recipe because I have nearly all the ingredients.
 
I haven't actually checked in the book to see which recipe it specifically relates to, and I'm at work now so don't have it handy (working very hard as you can see). I did however take the attached photo of the recipe they used, which should help narrow it down. It was pretty damned nice in my opinion, but that might have been influenced by the fact that I'd just got out of some heavy traffic, so any beer would have probably hit the spot. I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts if they get a chance to sample it.

Edit: I just remembered the guy in the shop said they got the recipe from the White Labs site, so it's safe to say they based it on this: https://www.whitelabs.com/sites/default/files/1916_Tooths_Pale_Ale.pdf
 

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I haven't actually checked in the book to see which recipe it specifically relates to, and I'm at work now so don't have it handy (working very hard as you can see). I did however take the attached photo of the recipe they used, which should help narrow it down. It was pretty damned nice in my opinion, but that might have been influenced by the fact that I'd just got out of some heavy traffic, so any beer would have probably hit the spot. I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts if they get a chance to sample it.
That looks like the one! page 281, Tooth's Crystal Ale
 
Just about to crack open my 2 vials of wlp059 for a starter and this stuff is like cement glue in the vial. Lots of shaking to try and dissolve the clump and you only let it sit for a bit and it sets solid again.
 
1894 Macclesfield XXXK Clone.JPG
Just about to crack open my 2 vials of wlp059 for a starter and this stuff is like cement glue in the vial. Lots of shaking to try and dissolve the clump and you only let it sit for a bit and it sets solid again.

"Whole Lotta Shakin Goin' On" (Thanks Elvis LOL!) alright DCB but once you've the yeast out of the tube & into another 100 ml or so of sterile water then it's easy enough to split into tubes.

Added Biofine to the keg (10 g) & here's a pic of the first pint after dumping the sludge from my 1894 Macclesfield XXXK Pale Ale Clone (P.269). It's much clearer ATM thanks to the extra week or so since the pic was taken but can't be arsed doing another pic at present.

I have learnt the lesson & will be making the extra effort of racking to secondary on top of the Biofine in future before kegging but only with my Pale Ales & Lagers. All the dark (Brewbrited) beers can sit in their kegs clearing themselves up whilst awaiting their turn at the taps.

Must agree with Bribie about the cat piss reminiscent to VB, XXXX, etc.
Quite tasty though IMHO!
 
Just brewed the 1917 Tooths XXX recipe from bronzed brews to try this yeast out. Now just need to wait for free fermenting space to try this yeast out.
 
Pete how long did you cold condition? I usually give about a week at near zero. My MK2 kegmate can get right down to there no problems, even froze a brew once. Racking to secondary fills me with fear of the O2 barbarian molecules.

Here's my Tooths tribute that I bottled just now for the Queensland Xmas case swap (which of course, as is true of the best case swaps is actually being held in NSW haha). Of course there's no Biofine involved here, and in fact because it's a bottler I only gave it about four days and even poured a bit of cloudy stuff back into the FV to enhance the conditioning yeast, as this stuff just drops like a bogan's knickers and it's hard to get a good bottle condition going, so I'd bet that if I had kegged this on Biofine it would be crystal in a couple of days.

bronzed brews on bottling.jpg


This is my Toohey's 1913 Standard Pale Ale, been pouring like this from the beginning.

bronzed brews 1913 TSPA.jpg
 
Does anyone know where I can buy a copy of the book "bronzed brews " in Australia ?

Cheers
 
Does anyone know where I can buy a copy of the book "bronzed brews " in Australia ?

Cheers

I just recently ordered it off his website only took a week and a half to get to Tassie as it's printed in the US. Think it's just printed per order , you can also get a discount code if you google lulu.com coupons
 
I just recently ordered it off his website only took a week and a half to get to Tassie as it's printed in the US. Think it's just printed per order , you can also get a discount code if you google lulu.com coupons
Cheers
 
Anyone used this in an all malt (no sugar at all) English style ale pitched and fermented ~20c? Thinking about a bitters style abv 3.5-4% & ~35ibu.

My first gen was used on the tooth's 1931 ale at 18c and it's definitely more malty than hoppy, just wondering if the higher temperature will bring out an "English" ester profile?
 
I've actually run this yeast through a couple of all-malt brews to build up extra slurry and it works really well. It's even the yeast in my Coopers Toucan Headbanger stout on tap at the moment. At higher temperatures it resembles a Burton Ale yeast very much, rising to the top after the fermentation like a layer of oily pancake batter, and I guess that's how yeasts were in Victorian Britain where it came from originally. As for esters you might get more of the bubble gum at 20 degrees, personally I like it and it tends to fade out over a few weeks.
 
Anyone brewed anything high ABV with wlp059, since I can't seem to find any mention of alcohol tolerance. Would be interested to see what the highest OG was.
 

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