what yeast people think would go well with the beer I am making so that I can expand my horizons on the yeast side. I will be making a Maris Otter Centennial SMaSH of currently undetermined strength
To be honest, unless you're going really crazy with ABV, then most British and US yeasts will work - I'd be tempted to just see what yeast the LHBS is selling off cheap for being out of date - just out of date liquid yeasts have about the right amount for a 1 gallon batch.... Yes, a clean US yeast would be most typical for this kind of beer, but even then you have lots of choice and they all have their advantages, for instance WLP001/1056 doesn't flocculate very well, WLP090 San Diego is better at flocculating but has a narrower temperature range. So if you have good temperature control then you might prefer WLP090, if not go for WLP001. If you want to know a bit more about the background to the US strains, I've posted about it
here.
Personally in your position I would use WLP515 Antwerp, just because it's your "local" member of the US yeast family - supposedly it came from de Koninck. Unfortunately it's a limited-release one that tends to come out in September or so, which means that most places have sold out of it by now. You might get lucky, or you have to wait until September. 3655 Schelde is the Wyeast not-quite-equivalent, but seems to be released even less frequently. I've not seen anything definite on whether de Koninck use their production yeast in their bottles or whether they use a specialist bottling yeast, but all I can say is that a bottle of de Koninck and say 20g of DME for a starter, works out cheaper than buying from White Labs - and you get "free" beer out of it too!
By the same logic, I'd be tempted to use some local hops for bittering - I have a rule that all my beers include EKG, so often that's what I bitter with, even on beers that would otherwise be SMaSHes.
