exBEERiment | Yeast Comparison: Saflager W-34/70 vs. WLP029 German Ale In A Märzen

Author: Marshall Schott

When it comes to lager beer, opinions abound as to how these classic styles should be brewed. To the ultra traditionalist,  a “genuine” lager goes through multiple decoctions using only the finest regional malts, gets fermented cool with a conventional lager yeast strain, and is left to cold condition for months in order to produce a clean, crisp, clear beer. Unfortunately, it’s these axioms that I believe have made lager beer brewing intimidating to the point of avoidance by many homebrewers. Consider that in a recent survey of over 2,000 homebrewers, more than 58% reported they don’t make lager beer, which I find hard to believe is purely a function of a preference for only ale. Truthfully, I know folks who more or less abide by these traditional rules and they’re making fantastic beer! My first few lager batches were made using many conventional techniques and they came out great, so good in fact I wanted to make more, a lot more, but I resisted because of the time commitment. I wasn’t interested in tying up a fermentation chamber for 6-8 weeks and began to wonder how I might hasten the process. Driven by a combination of impatience and a love for delicious Pils, Märzen, Vienna, I began messing around with different, arguably heretical methods that would reduce overall grain-to-glass time. The first product of this experimentation involved using traditional lager yeast in conjunction with an adapted fermentation schedule, which reduced grain-to-glass time to approximately 4 weeks and in anecdotal trials produced beer of the same quality as those I’d made using longer fermentation schedules. Awesome! Only thing is, this method still required building up a large starter or pitching multiple sachets of yeast, which sucks financially-speaking, and it did take about 2 weeks longer than my typical ale turnaround time. Back to the drawing board I went.

It had to be about 4 years ago I was chatting with someone who won an award in a BJCP competition for an Oktoberfest he fermented with Nottingham ale yeast. This didn’t seem right to me at the time, incongruous with my ideas of what an Oktoberfest was or should taste like. But hell, the dude won an award for his mock lager beer, who was I to judge? Around the same time, I’d gotten into White Labs’ WLP029 German Ale/Kölsch yeast and had used it for a number of styles including American Pale Ale and even an American Wheat. I really liked how this strain seemed to emphasize malt character while also contributing positively to hop expression in hoppier styles. For fun one time, and to test a little theory I’d developed, I decided to ferment this yeast cooler than White Labs recommends at 58°F. The beer was my (m)Oktoberfest, it was ready for consumption 2 weeks after brew day, and it went on to win 1st place for the category in a local BJCP competition just a couple weeks later.

While the win was validating, I still wondered the extent to which this ale yeast differed in character from a traditional lager strain. Armed presently with 2 independently controlled fermentation chambers, the time finally came for me to mount this bad boy!

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between a lager beer fermented with a traditional lager yeast and the same beer fermented with a hybrid ale yeast.

| METHOD |

A couple days prior to brewing, I made a starter large enough to ferment 5 gallons of (m)Oktoberfest, leaving enough for me to steal a few pitches for later use.

While I usually mash this beer at 152°F, I’d been wanting to mess around with drying it out a bit more and chose to mash instead closer to 148°F.

I used the batch sparge method for this 10 gallon batch and was rather pleased with the color of the first runnings.

Once the entire volume of wort was collected and in the kettle, I brought it to a boil, making sure to add a few drops of FermCap-S to avoid a messy brew day disaster.

Hops added and boil complete, I quickly chilled the wort to 60°F, just a few degrees above my currently frigid groundwater.

The wort was split into two 6 gallon PET carboys and 1 was placed in a chamber set to my preferred hybrid fermentation temperature of 58°F while the other was placed in a different chamber set to my preferred lager fermentation temperature of 50°F. While the hybrid batch was at temp a few hours sooner, I waited for the traditional batch to reach target temp before pitching yeast, as I wanted to observe the progression of each within the same time-frame. This only took a few hours. The next step was pitching the yeast. The hybrid batch was hit with a starter of previously harvested WLP029 while I pitched some Saflager 34/70 slurry that had previously fermented a German Pils in the traditional batch.

With the temp controllers set, I went out of town for a couple days and returned to 2 actively fermenting Märzens, the hybrid beer appearing to be a bit further along compared to the traditional yeast batch.

At 5 days post-pitch, the hybrid beer was showing dwindling signs of fermentation while the batch fermented with 34/70 was chugging along. In accordance with my preferred lager fermentation method, I began ramping the temp of the traditional yeast batch.Ten days into fermentation, both beers were sitting at 68°F and had develop rather similar looking caps of krausen.

Fermentation appeared to have slowed significantly at this point and I took an initial gravity sample. My new precision FG hydrometer makes it appear as though the difference is stark, but in reality they were within about .002 points of each other.

Since both beers were now at the same temp, I moved them to a single chamber and allowed them to sit for another 4 days before taking a second hydrometer measurement, then one more sample a day later for a confirmatory third reading.

The hybrid beer finished out at 1.011 while the traditional beer was just a hair above 1.010, similar enough to say attenuation was about equal. I crashed the beers over a couple days, fined with gelatin, and kegged them up!

I began presenting these beers to participants approximately a week after packaging, at which point they were well carbonated and crystal clear.

| RESULTS |

Given the fact 17 people participated in this xBmt, 10 would have had to accurately select the odd-beer-out to reach statistical significance (p<0.05). Each taster, blind to the nature of the xBmt, was served 3 samples of beer marked with different colors, 2 of which were the beer fermented with the traditional lager strain (Saflager 34/70) and 1 was the beer fermented with the hybrid strain (WLP029). Overall, only 7 participants accurately chose the beer fermented with WLP029 as being different, which is only slightly better than chance. While it’s wholly possible these correct tasters truly detected differences between the beers, statistically, these results do not support the notion that Saflager 34/70 and WLP029 produce differences distinguishable by the general population, at least when used to ferment Märzen.

Giving the 7 participants who chose correctly the benefit of the doubt, I’ll share some of the more interesting data from the second comparative evaluation in which tasters are asked to compare only the 2 different beers, still unaware of the nature of the xBmt. I’d caution anyone against jumping to any conclusions based on the following data due to the fact this xBmt did not produce significant results.

AROMA
Only 1 taster perceived the aroma between the 2 beers to be exactly the same while the 6 others believe they were somewhat similar; 1 preferred the aroma of the beer fermented with 34/70, 5 preferred the hybrid fermented beer, and 1 taster had no preference.

FLAVOR
All 7 tasters perceived the flavor of the difference beers as being somewhat similar with 4 preferring the beer fermented with the traditional lager strain and 3 preferring the beer fermented with WLP029.

MOUTHFEEL
A small majority of the tasters, 4, perceived mouthfeel as being exactly the same between the different beers while the other 3 thought it was somewhat similar; of the latter 3, all reported preferring the mouthfeel of the beer fermented with Saflager 34/70.

Regarding overall preference, a striking 6 of the 7 tasters selected the beer fermented with the traditional lager strain as being the one they enjoyed more. Interestingly, when asked to guess which beer was fermented with the hybrid yeast following disclosure of the nature of the xBmt, 5 tasters incorrectly chose the beer fermented with the traditional yeast.

My Impressions: My bias worked in my favor on this one, as I was able to distinguish the odd-beer-out in multiple quasi-blind triangle tests. To me, the hybrid fermented beer was noticeably more malt-forward, the character from the Honey malt and Special B far more present when compared to the other sample. I experienced the 34/70 fermented beer as being somewhat crisper with slightly more hop character, cleaner on the palate, aromatically less intense, and just more, well, lager-y. This is one of those recipes I’ve spent a lot of time honing and I personally felt both batches came out rather well, I’m not sure I really have a preference for one or the other, but if forced to choose, I’d be inclined to stick with using WLP029, if only because it reduces the overall turnaround time by a week or two.

| DISCUSSION |

A quick glance at my lager recipes will reveal my obvious adoration for hybrid yeasts, particularly WLP029, to ferment traditional lager styles. Over the years, I’ve produced a number of well-received lagers using this strain, many of which have fared rather well in competition. Admittedly, my thinking was that this method would get me close enough, that any differences that were purely a function of the yeast might go unnoticed by judges as long as the beer was well made. So yeah, to this extent, these results have left me feeling a bit validated.

Still, I’m hesitant to accept anything as absolute based solely on these results and have many other similar xBmts planned comparing different strains in different lager styles. I’ve heard that White Labs has plans to start performing more genetic sequencing of their strains, I find this incredibly interesting and look forward to learning more about these microorganisms we all love so much.

One last thing…

I brewed a California Common for a recent xBmt comparing 2 yeast strains purported to be from the same source. In the results article for that xBmt, I pontificated a bit:

To me, California Common is one of the very few styles that doesn’t allow for much leeway in terms of ingredient choice. The grains used should impart a gorgeous copper-amber color that produces a dry yet flavorful beer with just a touch of creaminess in the mouthfeel. The hops absolutely must be Northern Brewer, it’s part of what makes a Cal Common a Cal Common. I get that people like to play with different hop varieties, I actually think it’s really fun myself, and a Cal Common wort with Cascade or Mosaic would probably be great… just don’t call it a Cal Common. Because it’s not. Northern Brewer hops are a quintessential component of this style of beer, without them, you’ve got something else.

I bring this up because I believe there are brewers out there who share this sentiment when it comes to traditional lager beer, namely that a lager isn’t a lager unless certain ingredients and processes are used. On this specific point we may disagree, but believe me when I say, I understand where you’re coming from. I recently saw the recipe for a commercial Cal Common, it was dry hopped with Cascade, I cringed a little. For now, I’m comfortable referring to my lager beers fermented with other-than-traditional lager yeasts as “real lager” so long as they taste like the style I intended them to be. Perhaps this will make others cringe, and that’s okay, I get it.

***I recently learned the German Pils I submitted to NHC will be advancing to the second round, relevant because it was fermented with a “sloppy slurry” of WLP029.***

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