After 100 Years Melbourne No. 1 Yeast returns to Sydney
How did this come about? Well let me tell you a story… I was in London, March 2015, to give a paper at a technical conference, and had a few spare days. (One day I went to the London Metropolitan Archives but I will leave that for another time.) I had arranged before leaving Australia to take the Truman’s Brewery tour.
So on a brisk! Saturday lunchtime I am on the tour with 2 other guys. Jack Hibberd was the guy leading the tour and was very knowledgeable. During the tour I asked a lot of questions, which were mostly answered. When it came to the yeast that they were using he described the effort that they put in to find the authentic yeast. Summary article. In short, when the original Truman’s brewery closed in 1958 several strains were banked at the National Collection of Yeast Cultures (NCYC), and from these they eventually selected two ale strains for their new brews.
This snippet of conversation when mixed with several pints of the excellent Truman’s Runner got me thinking. On return to my accommodation The Wellington Hotel at Waterloo, a warming pie and pint of Fuller’s ESB, I fired up my laptop and went to the NCYC site, my first search term was “Australian” BINGO - top of the list;
NCYC 192 Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Depositor G. Johnson
Deposit Date May 1936
Equivalent Strain Designations: Melbourne No. 1 strain, NCTC 4919
Bronzed Brews details many early 20th century Tooth and Co. recipes and considering that Grove Johnson was their brewing analyst/consultant it is highly likely that Tooth’s used No. 1 yeast for their ale production. (See the extract from the book for more information).
Subsequently I emailed Chris White from White Labs explaining what I had found and asked whether White Labs could source this yeast and make it available to home brewers. We had some follow up conversations at NHC15 in San Diego and long story short WLP059, Melbourne Ale yeast was recreated. Many thanks to Chris White and Kara Taylor.
White Labs launched, Yeast Vault, in December 2015 which allows home brewers to vote for the strains that should enter production, WLP059 is on the list! So I encourage you to vote for WLP059 and get it into production, so that authentic Australian yeast can be used to brew the bronzed brews of the past.
WLP059 Melbourne Ale Yeast is occasionally available from White Labs.