Fullers Frontier

[Midlife]

Question for lager drinkers!! last night I was lucky enough to go in several pubs on a social evening out in London...

On the 4th venue I spotted Fullers Frontier. I've not had this before and was very impressed. Prior to this Id had a Peroni, Veltins, and a Lowenbrau (I now expect comments on my drinking habits!!!) so when I sampled the Frontier it stood out nicely. Now the problem is I now want to brew it. My last copy was a St Austell Korev which I came out quite nicely (with some ingredients help from Seymour!). Also St Austell gave a rough list of what was in the beer which helped.

I can’t seem to locate the general recipe for Frontier, and wondered if anyone had any ideas on the malts, adjuncts and hops? I would probably stick to my favoured WLP013 yeast.

Cheers... fingers crossed!

[seymour]

It's not much, but here's what I've gathered:

Fullers Frontier New Wave Lager (2014)
Brewery: Fullers/Griffin Brewery (historic, 1699-present) in South London, England
OG: 1043
ABV: 4.5%
Grainbill: 100% Low-Colour Maris Otter? mash at a low temp for a long duration
Hops: Willamette, Cascade, Liberty
IBU: ≈30?
Colour: clear golden
Yeast: historic Fullers brewery strain, available as White Labs WLP002 and Wyeast 1968, but at a cooler temp, then lagered for 5 weeks and filtered.

[Barley Water]

Humm....thats interesting. I got the impression that it was a lager when I read the promotional stuff on the Fuller's website. It looks really easy to make based on Mr. Seymour's research. I do however have a couple technical questions. I use WLP02 quite a bit because of course I think Fuller's hung the moon. That strain is known for low attenuation and floculates better than any strain I can think of. First question; I usually run that stuff at 68F, how low can you let the temperature get before it starts stalling out on you and just drops out? My second question relates to this particular beer; it looks like it is pretty well attenuated to me (low O.G. and fairly high ABV give the starting gravity). I am sure that is why Mr. Seymour is recommending that the mash temperature be really low but I wonder how this works out given that the yeast is a low attenuator and it's being used pretty cold? As much as I like this strain, I won't use it to make IPA's because it just doesn't dry the beer out enough in my humble opinion (I will use WLP05 however). If I were making this stuff I might start out cold but after a couple of days I would start ramping up the temperature just to get the beer to finish out. Also, this smells alot like lager brewing to me; I think I would would pitch a very big starter even though this is an ale yeast.

I have never had this beer nor have I seen it being offered anywhere on this side of the pond. Can the original poster give us an idea about hop flavor and aroma? Also, how fruity tasting is the beer and how much yeast character is there. If there is not alot then I would assume they are running this stuff pretty cold or perhaps (and God forbid) they are using a different strain on this beer. If there is little yeast derived flavor you might get away with using WLP01 or perhaps even a Kolsch strain which you can run colder and will attenuate better; just a thought.

[Midlife]

The lager had a real nice body to it and was also smooth, the taste and aroma was as described but fairly low fruit and hop profile compared to some beers with the new world hops. But nice enough. I think its the base malt and what's the body builder that's interesting it stood out from the other beers, I can see how low colour MO with a lager yeast works. I'm probably not a good enough tasting expert to identify any of the adjuncts. Could the add in be Dextrin/Carapils?

Cheers

Doug

[seymour]

Humm....thats interesting. I got the impression that it was a lager when I read the promotional stuff on the Fuller's website. It looks really easy to make based on Mr. Seymour's research. I do however have a couple technical questions...

It IS marketed as a lager, but in multiple places Fullers claims to use their regular yeast plus lengthy cold-conditioning. Technically, lagering doesn't always necessarily differentiate a Saccharomyces pastorianus versus a Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermentation, sometimes it is applied in the more sense of any beer which undergoes a lengthy cold-conditioning. Fuller's is obviously an English brewery, so we can't blame a language barrier, but for instance many texts describe Kolsch or Dusseldorf Alt or Belgian Trappist ales being "lagered" a certain length of time before sale, all of which are well-known ales. Even so, I have many of the same questions as you.

...I use WLP02 quite a bit because of course I think Fuller's hung the moon. That strain is known for low attenuation and floculates better than any strain I can think of. First question; I usually run that stuff at 68F, how low can you let the temperature get before it starts stalling out on you and just drops out? My second question relates to this particular beer; it looks like it is pretty well attenuated to me (low O.G. and fairly high ABV give the starting gravity). I am sure that is why Mr. Seymour is recommending that the mash temperature be really low but I wonder how this works out given that the yeast is a low attenuator and it's being used pretty cold? As much as I like this strain, I won't use it to make IPA's because it just doesn't dry the beer out enough in my humble opinion (I will use WLP05 however)...

I agree, the Fullers strain one of the tastiest yeasts in the world. I know what you're talking about, but I personally don't consider it low-attenuating, per se. It is famously inefficient at fermenting maltotriose and some other specific complex melanoidins present in darker malts, which is why it leaves behind such nice caramelly sweetness in complex grainbills, but on the other hand, it can nonethess ferment a high alcohol beer to relative dryness given time. And it can ferment a 100% pale grainbill no problem with very little residual sweetness. I've never attempted to "lager" with it though. Like you, I have a hard time believing it would do much more once the beer is cold-crashed and the yeast drops to the bottom and cements together. I suspect they must pitch a separate lager yeast in the secondary, don't you think? Or perhaps they have motorized rakes or agitators in the fermentors to counteract the clumping nature of Fullers yeast? Some larger Kolsch breweries do so.

...If I were making this stuff I might start out cold but after a couple of days I would start ramping up the temperature just to get the beer to finish out. Also, this smells alot like lager brewing to me; I think I would would pitch a very big starter even though this is an ale yeast...

I agree, those are both excellent tips. I haven't spoken with any Fullers brewers, but I've worked with several commercial brewers who use the Wyeast version. They each report that relative to American ale strains, this yeast population dies out extremely fast. So, unless you're promptly pumping fresh wort into a freshly emptied fermentor while the yeast is super young and hardy, the cell count decays so quickly that you have to pitch a bigger and bigger slurry each subsequent day you wait between brews, just in order to have enough live cells present. Does that make sense, I'm not sure I explained that in the clearest way?

[Barley Water]

Interesting, if they are pitching a lager yeast after the ale yeast has done it's thing I'm sure that is how they are drying the beer out. I wonder how cold they are running the ale yeast, seems like a shame to snuff out all the yeast derived flavors but then who am I to questions the pros, right?