Brewers’ yeast is increasingly finding a home in cider production, offering cider makers new tools to manipulate fermentation characteristics, enhance flavor profiles, and streamline production timelines. Both Green Bench and Bauman’s Cider shared at the 2025 CiderCon that brewers’ yeast strains have been employed with promising results, showcasing how these strains can be a valuable addition to the cider making toolkit.
By leveraging brewers’ yeast strains, Green Bench and Bauman’s looked to demonstrate how cidermakers can develop unique cider profiles, adjust acidity, and refine fermentation timelines. With continued exploration, brewers’ yeast may become a more common fixture in cider production, offering both creative and practical advantages.
Brian Wing, head of the cider and mead program at Green Bench in St. Petersburg, Florida, has been using White Labs WLP644 Saccharomyces “Bruxellensis” Trois in his ciders for quite a while with positive results, including a cider called Pinellas, a peach cider dry-hopped with Azacca hops.
“I selected the White Labs 644 because it’s a nice, quick fermenter. It produces a nice low-level tartness and also some tropical fruit aromas — little pineapple, little mango — again, just to kind of complement that peach profile,” Wing said.
Wing shared with the CiderCon session that the strain was originally believed to be a Brettanomyces strain, and WLP644 gained popularity in the brewing world for its clean fermentation and fruity esters.
“Everybody thought, we’ve got an amazing, quick Brett strain that produces these amazing tropical notes. Then later on, through 2014, it gets sequenced, and we find out it’s actually a Saccharomyces strain,” Wing said.
The strain remains popular due to its ability to ferment quickly while imparting distinct fruit-forward characteristics.
Jen Curs, who runs the specialty cider program and barrel aging program for Bauman’s shared an experiment with Fermentis AC-4 and Sourvisiae in a base cider for their Yarlington Mill brand that was not carbed yet. She shared she was testing their impact on acid production and ester formation.
“AC-4 has been what we’ve been using at the farm for the last year,” she said. “It hasn’t always been our house strain. Before, we used EC-1118 (Lalvin), and we still do for the modern cider making, but we just wanted something a little bit more estery, a little bit more fruity, to contribute to those aromatics.”
While EC-1118 is a workhorse yeast known for its neutral profile, AC-4 provides a more pronounced fruitiness.
“EC-1118 is great. It’s a great yeast. It’s going to do the job and do it really well, but it can be a little neutral,” she added. By switching to AC-4 in this trial, Bauman’s has been able to accentuate fruit-driven aromas in the cider.
Sourvisiae, another strain from Fermentis, has also produced intriguing results.
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“I did a trial of Sourvisiae on just dessert fruit a couple of years ago, and my mind was blown,” she said. “I was like, ‘What is this?’ And it was super comparable to me, to like the Dolgo crabapple, which not everyone has access to, and it can be costly. And I thought, what a valuable plug-in tool.”
Andy Diacetis of Lallemand noted the significant difference in acidity when using Sourvisiae. The final pH of the Sourvisiae cider was 3.45, compared to 3.78 for AC-4.
”A pretty significant difference in pH,” he said. “Everything else — fermentation temperature, juice — was exactly the same. The only difference was the strain.”
The increase in acidity from Sourvisiae presents a potential advantage for cider makers looking to create bright, tart ciders without relying solely on apple selection or blending techniques.
Diacetis emphasized that brewers’ yeast strains are opening new doors for cider makers and wanted the goal of the tasting was to show how some of these strains will do some different things than the standard cider yeast strains that many cidermakers have been working with traditionally.”
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