Recommend Me A Yeast For A Barley Wine

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johnnyboy1965

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Im spreading the love around a bit and im going to brew a Barley Wine.
Just using liquid malt extract, no hops.
12% ABV. Need recommendations on a good yeast. Dont mind paying the extra.
 
Any English ale yeast should work. AFAIK any available yeast should ferment up to 13%+.

Without any bittering hops the beer is gonna be incredibly sweet and rich. I'd strongly recommend having a bittering addition.
 
I brewed two kinds of these things. I love S-33 for this, good results and enough FG. However, you do need a bittering hop addition. My first one I used 50 IBU, my second one 40 IBU. It balances out the malty sweetness.
 
In a barley wine it's more to balance out the malt flavour. I've made a couple of barley wines before and not used enough bittering hops and the flavour has been a bit overpowering. It's not to get hoppy flavours in there like an APA, but more of a balance.

Back to yeast, I realise my last comment wasn't that helpful. I've made two American barleywines before and used US-05 and MJ44 California Ale yeast, I think both can ferment up to 15%, far higher than either of my BW were. However, if you're looking for a more traditional BW then an English ale yeast would be best. When I'm finding a new yeast, I like to go on to my favourite HBS and read the difference between the yeast styles and find which ones have the best characteristics for my beer.

So if I was making a barley wine, I'd go onto GEB and see which English ale yeasts they have. I'd read their descriptions and see which ones are best for the flavours I'm going for, the FG I'm aiming for etc. For me, I usually make a choice early on whether I want dry or liquid yeast. For liquid yeast a starter will be necessary and I'd spend more time getting the fermentation temperatures right. For dry yeast, if the OG is >1080 or so I'd recommend buying two packets and rehydrating them.
 
I brewed two kinds of these things. I love S-33 for this, good results and enough FG. However, you do need a bittering hop addition. My first one I used 50 IBU, my second one 40 IBU. It balances out the malty sweetness.

S-33 is a good high attenuating and robust yeast, however I've found it to be neutral in flavour. This isn't a bad thing at all, but depends what you're after.
 
Im spreading the love around a bit and im going to brew a Barley Wine.
Just using liquid malt extract, no hops.
12% ABV. Need recommendations on a good yeast. Dont mind paying the extra.

How quickly do you plan on drinking this batch? Unless it's going to be gone in a matter of a few weeks you really need to use some hops, for their preservative quality.
 
If you don't use hops it will be a sickly mess. I have made 2 recently and they are both cack. I needed more hops to balance them out. Even though they were not that strong they still finished high 1025. I used CML barley wine yeast but if i did it again i would use wyeast 1056 or maybe wlp007. A lot harder to brew than i thought. I have brewed strong beers before but used a lot of different malts which seemed to help in the complexity of flavour. My BW was very one dimensional.
 

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