that cold crashing an ale (to clarify) could have caused enough yeast to drop out, that bottle carbing wouldn’t fully take place?
No, not really. It could make bottle conditioning take longer, but there will always be some yeast in suspension.
+1 though if you were bulk aging for a year or more your concern is more the viability of the yeast that’s left in suspension. In other words, are they still alive?
Absolutely agreed. Think about it- what’s lagering but an extended cold crash, right? And many of us lager for multiple months at temps near freezing, then prime and bottle without adding any extra yeast. And yes, they carb.
Depends on the abv. Some barleywine recipes recommend pitching yeast during priming.
True, but that also goes back to Matt’s comment about viability. The yeast sitting in a high-ABV environment have very low viability, so you may not get good bottle carbonation unless you add an alcohol-tolerant yeast. Such as champagne yeast.
Simply cold crashing for an extended period should not result in dropping out too many yeast cells to effectively carbonate. If some other condition resulted in poor yeast viability, such as long-term aging (6mo+) or high ABV(10%+), then re-yeasting would be necessary.
