Ridley's Yeast Strain?

[YeastWhisperer]

Well, I was visiting my local home brew supply store when I noticed vial of White Labs Essex Ale was still available. As it was sporting a best before date of 6/12/2015 and I am a firm believer that no yeast culture should go to waste, I decided that I would take the challenge to grow it into a healthy starter and plate and slant the strain while I was at it.

With that said, it is an open secret that this culture is the Ridley strain. I have never worked with the Ridley yeast strain. In fact, I have never tasted a Ridley's beer. I am hoping that there is resident Ridley's expert on this forum.

[IPA]

Well, I was visiting my local home brew supply store when I noticed vial of White Labs Essex Ale was still available. As it was sporting a best before date of 6/12/2015 and I firm believer that no yeast culture should go to waste, I decided that I would take the challenge to grow it into a healthy starter and plate and slant the strain while I was at it.

With that said, it is an open secret that this culture is the Ridley strain. I have never worked with the Ridley yeast strain. In fact, I have never tasted a Ridley's beer. I am hoping that there is resident Ridley's expert on this forum.

Try Kyle_T he posted some photos of the the now derelict brewery a couple of weeks ago.

[Hanglow]

Yeah he has started a good Ridleys blog,

https://theessexbrewer.wordpress.com/

[Kyle_T]

I'm not expert but I shall do what I can to help.

First things first I have been told that the WLP022 - Essex Ale is not the true to source original Ridleys yeast but an original strain with a slight alteration of the yeast because of legalities concerning the name of Ridleys, this is why it is called Essex Ale.

This minor alteration will be virtually undetectable to you and I but skirts around the issue of naming for the companies and saves a hefty law suit from Greedy King.

[YeastWhisperer]

I seriously doubt that the strain has been altered on purpose. I have spoken to Chris White on several occasions. The strains that White Labs sells are strains that Chris has collected over the years. The reason why the culture is called Essex ale has nothing to with the strain being altered. It has to do with avoiding trademark infringement. Profiting from the use of another company's trademark without a written agreement is an actionable tort in the U.S. (we are talking blood in the water, lawyers circling, large award tort). That's why none of the White Labs strains carry a brewery name, and the company is close-lipped about their sources.

[Kyle_T]

That's why I said I had been told. Having issues with companies not disclosing true source originality is something I personally don't like but I luckily for me there are 3 brewers near me that use the yeast including the Ridleys family.

[Dennis King]

Drank a fair amount of Ridley's in the past, the bitter was a decent session beer. The stronger beers where a work of art. I rate Rumpus as one of my favourite all time beers and will certainly be in my top 5 beers of all time.
I used the yeast from a few different sources. Tried the whitelabs yeast several years back, very impressed. I then asked brewlabs to supply a slant, they labelled it "E" for reasons already stated. Very similar to the whitelabs but maybe a bit cleaner/fresher. I've also made several trips to Crouch Vale brewery who have use the Ridley's strain. Peter the head brewer told me they continuity re-use the yeast, no washing or rinsing just re-pitch within a few days of cropping. As expected the brewery yeast was by far the best. All of the yeasts were a bit of a beast, very strong top croppers but the brewery yeast not only escaped the fermenter it also tried to get out of the fermenting fridge. My only problem with the brewery yeast was for some reason I could not keep it going for more the 2 generations, after what Peter told me I found that a bit disappointing. Can recommend this yeast to any brewer as a perfect yeast for English ales.

[Kyle_T]

I was also provided with some brewing log entries by Ron Pattinson that mark the average attenuation as 83%, White Labs is 74 - 76% I think, I found over successive brews it increased from 72% to 76% to 79% and if I had a chance to use it again I suspect it may increase again, used in conjunction with Torrified Wheat it gives a lovely fresh bread dough aroma to the beer, during fermentation if it is a little high 22c + it will give of huge amounts of banana. It is a very good yeast at cleaning up after itself and packs down brilliantly in the bottle. I generally find the yeast gives a malt forward first impression and a lasting hop aftertaste.