One of my staples is an Ordinary Bitter which I use WLP005 to ferment. When I made my last batch, I poopped the lid off the jar of harvested yeast to make a starter, and it smelled like bandaids. So into the yard it went. But I don't really have a well stocked LHBS, so a replacement was gong to take a week to get in the mail and I had brewing plans. A friend had some Lallemand Nottingham he would sell me. I thought, "Sure! It's British, why not?"
So my recipe was exactly the same except for the yeast. Fermentation was strong and lasted about 5 days. I aged it on the yeast for three weeks like I always do, then kegged. The beer tastes nothing like I expected, and has a peculiar flavor to it, I would best describe as characteristic of Newcastle, a beer I don't really like. Other than it not tasting like I wanted, it is a fine beer, and my friends are enjoying it.
I'd always been wary of trying english brown ales because I expected them to taste like Newcastle. Having tried a few others, I find that they really don't, and are quite tasty. So I am starting to wonder if it's not the malt, and maybe it's a yeast derived flavor I don't care for? I looked around the web to see the commercial origins of this yeast. Even Lallemand's website is vague though. Anyone know where Nottingham comes from? Does Newcastle use the same strain, or a close relative of it?
2011-2012