How was Denny's Favorite 50 developed?

pupthepup · April 1, 2013, 11:04pm

A question for Denny, How was ‘Denny’s Favorite 50 developed?’

Was it some wild yeast that you happen to capture? Is it a relabeled variety of yeast? How did Wyeast get hold of it?

Apologies in advance if I’m asking too sensitive a question.

nighthawk · April 1, 2013, 11:41pm

I ran across it many years ago from a company called Brewtek, run by Maribeth Raines and now no longer in business. I wanted to get into yeast culturing, so I ordered supplies and a bunch of slants form them. When I tried one called CL-50, I found that it was as clean as my favorite yeasts, very attenuative, and very easy to work with. In addition, it left the beer with a really nice, smooth mouthfeel. I stated keeping a culture of it around and turned N8 and a bunch of other people on to it. N8 used it for a bunch of great beers. When my Rye IPA recipe started getting popular, I encouraged people to seek out this yeast and go to the trouble of building it up from a slant. Brewtek shut down, but another co. CO had samples of the yeast and kept it at least marginally available. At the same time, I started encouraging Dave Logsdon and Wyeast a few years back top make it available. They finally did…

http://www.tastybrew.com/forum/thread/134497

denny · April 2, 2013, 3:42pm

Thanks for saving me the effort, Nighthawk!