Back in the heyday of craft beer (c.2010) yeast series were all the rage. Mikkeller did one, BrewDog did one, and presumably whatever American brewery they were stealing their ideas from did one too. Such technical noodling has gone a bit out of fashion lately but Trouble is back at it. What better way to sell four beers at a time to idiots like me?The base is Lucky, the 4.4% ABV pale ale they released last spring, and four yeast varieties are being showcased. Though the names meant very little to me, I set them up blind to avoid any possible prejudices. It was fascinating to observe the effect different yeasts have, even on a punchy hop-forward beer like this.
All four poured a pale yellow but there was a noticeable difference in the appearances. The New England one was noticeably hazier: not quite opaque, but a witbier grade of cloudiness. A yeast I assume is a close relation, Fruitbowl, was slightly misted too, while Sanders (a name I recognise from the WHC collection) was only faintly cloudy, and Saturn was completely clear.
Obviously, with Talus and Simcoe as the hops, citrus features big in the aroma. This was especially the case in Saturn, so I'm guessing this is the most neutral of the yeasts, letting the hops do their thing with minimal interference. That said, there was a decent zest quotient from the aroma of Fruitbowl as well. New England offered the same only fainter while Sanders began settling into the wooden spoon position with barely any aroma at all. Slightly tropical, perhaps, but that's being charitable.
We'll keep the focus on Bernie as we move to the flavour: it's dreadful. A hot chemical burn of butane and bitumen. The citrus is still there but you have to work around the nastiness to find it. In all honesty I probably wouldn't have noticed the off-flavour, were it not for the fact it's completely missing in the other three. It fades as the beer warms but I offer no forgiveness for that initial shock.
I would say Fruitbowl was my third favourite. There was nothing wrong with it per se, but it showed a few of the standard bum notes that you get with hazy pale ales: a cloying vanilla sweetness and some rough and earthy yeast fuzz. There's a decent oily dank in here as well and, again, I would probably have nodded this through in different circumstances, but two of the other beers did things better.
They're both standard-bearers for their sub-genres. Saturn brings all the distinct zestiness out in the flavour: clean lemon rind, finishing quickly and crisply with just a residue of citronella oils left behind. The worst I can say about this is that it lacks complexity: it does its thing, does it well, and then leaves. But on the other hand this is a 4.4% ABV quaffer; you are definitely not meant to sit around with four tiny sample glasses of something like this, sipping and and typing and typing and sipping. Naw, Saturn Lucky is a drinking beer.
My pick of the bunch, then, was New England. I didn't realise that was the name of a yeast rather than a broad umbrella term, but here we are. I really liked how it retains the sharp and clean zesty qualities of the hops even while it churns them into a fuller, sweeter, juicier package. It's very much on the clean side of the hazy spectrum, with no savoury gack or pointy edges. I often use "lemon tart" as a descriptor for these kinds of beers when they're done well and it applies perfectly here.
Phew! This was a tough intellectual exercise, but great fun to do. The brewery has chosen the yeasts well, as these are four markedly different beers. My top two are indications that it makes no difference to quality whether a pale ale is clear or hazy, as long as it's well assembled. But you knew that anyway.
