WLP720 occupies the same functional niche as Wyeast 4632 — a strain that stops well short of full attenuation on its own, leaving real residual sweetness in a finished mead without the mead maker needing to intervene with a stabilisation technique — with a published range, 60-75%, that overlaps 4632's but extends slightly higher at the top.
The practical difference from 4632
That extra few percentage points of attenuation ceiling matter in practice: a mead maker wanting the driest result still achievable within the "naturally sweet" category might lean toward WLP720, while one wanting to guarantee the sweetest, most cautious result within the same general strain family might prefer 4632's lower ceiling instead. Neither strain reaches full attenuation, but the difference between their ranges is real enough to matter for a mead maker fine-tuning a specific sweetness target.
Reading the finishing gravity, not just the ABV
Run a 1.100 mead must through WLP720's 67.5% midpoint attenuation and it settles near 1.0325 — about 8.9% ABV by the simple formula, but the finishing gravity itself is the number that actually matters here, since residual sweetness is the entire reason to reach for this strain over a fully attenuating one. The ABV and attenuation calculator confirms both figures for a specific batch's real measured gravities.
Dessert-wine-style applications
Beyond sweet mead specifically, WLP720 is also used for dessert-wine-style fermentations more broadly, wherever a naturally capped attenuation is the goal rather than a stabilised or back-sweetened dry base — a genuinely useful trait outside mead-making alone, for any fermented beverage aiming for natural, yeast-limited sweetness.
Flocculation
Medium flocculation, matching 4632's rating, gives WLP720 reasonably ordinary clearing behaviour, with the same caveat that a sweeter, higher-residual-sugar mead can take longer to fully clarify than a bone-dry one regardless of the yeast's own settling tendency.
Choosing between WLP720 and Wyeast 4632
Both strains solve the same basic problem, and the choice between them often comes down to format preference — liquid vial versus liquid smack pack, both requiring similar viability and starter discipline — rather than any dramatic, reliably reproducible flavour difference reported between the two. A mead maker deciding between them for the first time is reasonably safe picking based on whichever is fresher or more readily available from a given supplier.
Its two standard applications
Sweet mead and dessert-wine-style ferments are WLP720's clear home, alongside 4632 as the two standard options homebrewers reach for when natural, yeast-capped sweetness is the specific goal rather than an accident of an incomplete or stalled fermentation.
Not a substitute for adequate honey
A capped-attenuation strain limits how far fermentation proceeds, but it doesn't manufacture sweetness on its own — the honey addition itself still needs to be generous enough to leave meaningful residual sugar once WLP720 has fermented its share of it. A thin, under-honeyed must fermented with WLP720 can still finish drier and less satisfying than a mead maker expects if the original recipe didn't properly account for how much of that sugar the yeast will actually go on to consume within its own published attenuation range.