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There are two main forms of yeasts that you will want to choose between when you brew your beer: liquid yeast and dried yeast. We carry over fifty different types of liquid yeast, and between three and five varieties of dried yeast (depending upon seasonal availabilty). Each form (dried and liquid) has their own pros and cons.

Click here for our page of dried yeast. Click here for our page of liquid yeast.

The best analogy that I have regarding yeasts is that you should think of them like dogs. Each variety of yeast is like a variety of dog. You have your dachshunds, your greyhounds, your poodles, your pitbulls. Each variety of dog is specifically "built" - genetically engineered - to be really good at a few specialized tasks. If you want a dog that runs fast and sees small animals very well, get a greyhound. If you want a dog that can herd sheep, greyhounds are not that good of an idea. Even though every dog is still a "dog," - Canis familiaris - they are all very different.

Yeasts are the same way. Every yeast is still a "yeast," but the varieties are immensely different. All (normal) ale yeast are of the species Sacchoromyces cerevaisea, but each of the varieties will produce very different results in the beer that they ferment.

Some yeasts produce very clean, crisp, dry neutral flavors. Other yeasts are malty and full-bodied (they have a low attenuation) meaning that beers fermented with them will remain rich and slightly sweet. Other yeasts produce very fruity, complex nuances in the background of the beer's flavor, others produce the clove and banana flavors which are necessary for German-style hefeweizens. So for every style of beer, there are a handful of yeasts which will produce the desired flavor in that style. (Just like if you want a fast-running dog that can see small animals very well, you have your greyhound, your wolfhound, your whippet, but that's about it.)

Dried yeasts, typically, are not style-specific. They are all-purpose, happy-go-lucky mutts. The same yeast can be used for a porter, a pale ale or a wheat beer. The drawback to fermenting with dried yeasts is that those beers may not show true "style-specific" flavors: the porter might not have the buttery subtleties that it should, the pale ale might not have a clean dry hoppy finish. These are flavors/effects that are partially derived from yeast biology, and these "mutts" are not genetically built to produce them.

The beers made will still be very good, and dried yeasts have increased in quality INCREDIBLY over the past five years, but their flavors are generic for all beers. On the pro side, dried yeasts are less expensive than liquid yeasts and they do start fermenting and finish fermenting faster than liquid yeasts, and they are slightly easier to use since they do not need to be warmed up prior to pitching. Also, depending upon the palate of the person drinkning the beer, some people may not notice any difference between beers fermented with dried or liquid yeasts. Other people find liquid yeasts to be significant upgrades to their beer, and worth the extra cost and time.

I recommend experimenting with both dried and liquid yeasts in order to see if the extra cost and time necessary with liquid yeasts are worth the benefits that you may see in your beer.

We carry almost all of the varieties of both White Labs strains of liquid yeast. We carry the eight or ten most popular Wyeast varieties, but can special order anything that they produce and usually have it within the week. Please visit their websites for a description of all the possible flavors you can add to your beer.