We’ve all had plenty of beers fermented with either WLP001 California Ale Yeast or WLP002 English Ale Yeast. We all have a general sense of what each yeast is supposed to do for you. Malt v. hops, fruitiness v. dryness, attenuation v. residual gravity. BOOM WLP001 and WLP002 Triangle Taste Test!!!

My main point here was to educate my own palate with a real example of these two yeasts side by side. I’ve done plenty of brewing and plenty of reading around these two yeasts. But to really train the palate, I wanted to make one wort fermented at the same time, same temp, same carbonation, same day tasting side by side. And that’s what I did.

The recipe was pretty straight forward. I was aiming to balance some American qualities using Cascade hops with some English qualities using Pale Ale malt and a heavy hand of caramel malt. The recipe is as follows:

10lb American Pale Ale Malt
2lb Rahr Pils
1lb American Caramel 60L
2.0 oz Cascade (5.5% AA) FWH
1.0 oz Cascade (5.5% AA) 5min

I split the batch into two 3 gallon fermentors and added one full White Labs vial to each fermentor. I didn’t make a starter fearing I’d over pitch. I didn’t want to try and guess work my way from a starter into the smaller batch. I figured also that if the yeasts were pitch under active any differences in flavor may be more pronounced.

We had a great time with the triangle test. I hadn’t tasted the beers in their carbonated state at temperature until the shooting of the video. John did a great job finding the paired beers in the triangle. I was hell bent of sticking to my first impression, I ended up not changing my mind and got it wrong.

The WLP002 was certainly fruitier and maltier on the nose. The WLP001 smelled drier with a clearer hop character. Tough to actually separate fruity aroma from grapefruit Cascade aroma per se. It might be more pronounced if I was using say an English hop or a noble hop. Something that isn’t inherently fruity.
The WLP001 was more bitter but that seemed more likely as a result of malt seeming drier. Obviously being the same wort the IBUs prior to pitching were identical. I say identical because hop oils do bind up to yeast cell walls. Whether different yeast strains actually “soak” up more oils that others is piece or research I’ve never heard of being out in the brewing world.

These yeasts definitely perform as you’d expect. Sort of boring I guess as a result. However I created a modest wort and was trying to play the recipe into neither yeasts strength. If you repeated this experiment with say dominantly English Style beer like a Southern English Brown Ale or a dominantly American Style like a Double IPA if the differences would stand out more. I’ve always wondered that when you read about these type of experiments.

Anyway, in the end I don’t think if you gave me one beer or another by itself, I’d inherently say it was WLP001 or WLP002 accurately every time. One last factor not discussed is the generation freshness of the yeasts. If you have never repitched yeast from batch to batch I encourage you do try it. I also encourage you to try it with the same wort. There is something to be said on the second and third pitch where the yeasts really start to exemplify what they are reported to do. I’ve done this in the past with Ferments S-04. Right out of the pack its sort of English but not really remarkable. The yeast is great however on its second repitch (third beer).

Well that’s enough of that for this week. Next up… there was a third yeast pitched with this wort!!!

Cheers