Taras Boulba Yeast

Many of you know my views on Taras Boulba and its taste-alikes: https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/...-all-its-cracked-up-to-be.104096/post-1257967

Regardless of all that, I got it into my head that there was reasonable grounds to suspect that Brasserie de la Senne was using Harvey's yeast in this and some others of its beers. To see the logic behind this you'll need to search other UK forums.

So I forced a bottle of TB and one of Zinnebir down my throat and chucked the dregs into a culture medium.

This is the most curious yeast I've ever come across and I'm really pleased with it. My first attempt at a five-litre batch of best English bitter hit the nail on the head: a lovely, fruity smell and good-tasting bitter. It seemed to ferment and clear very, very quickly. I put the yeast dregs n the fridge, where they've festered for a couple of months. Restarted the yeast on Sunday in a 1040 OG culture wort and it had munched through the lot in about 12 hours and started to settle. Pitched it into 20 litres of best bitter yesterday lunchtime and, nothing. And then, nothing. After that, nothing- not even a bubble on the surface. Half an hour later the surface is covered with white suds and the airlock is going like the clappers. This morning there's the familiar yeasty, fruity smell and all is going well. I expect it to be finished some time today.
This isn't like any Belgian yeast I've used before, it isn't obviously phenoolic and it doesn't have that Abbey "twang".
I would recommend anyone who can get hold of a bottle of TB or Z to harvest the yeast and give it a try. It's quite an experience. (What you do with the beer is your business).

@dave_77 will be interested in this

I have heard Yvan De Beats say that core yeast is from a fairly well known Belgian brewery but never discloses who. Also I'm pretty sure they bottle condition with a different strain also.

dave_77 said:

I have heard Yvan De Beats say that core yeast is from a fairly well known Belgian brewery but never discloses who. Also I'm pretty sure they bottle condition with a different strain also.

Click to expand...

This. I suspect if the bottles contained the viable primary strain, Whitelabs, Wyeast et al would have it on the market by now.

Sadfield said:

This. I suspect if the bottles contained the viable primary strain, Whitelabs, Wyeast et al would have it on the market by now.

Click to expand...

Hmm - not so sure. Beers like TB don't have much visibility in the US, and possibly more importantly don't fit US prejudices about what Belgian yeast "should" be like, in the same way that the US yeast labs largely deny the significant role of phenolic yeast in British beer.

Interesting listening to Burning Sky talk about their house yeast being closest to French Saison but isn't the exact strain available through the yeast labs..the beer they brewed with De la Senne had a similar yeast character ...wonder if they are using a similar french Saison strain at the low end of the temp range.

dave_77 said:

I have heard Yvan De Beats say that core yeast is from a fairly well known Belgian brewery but never discloses who. Also I'm pretty sure they bottle condition with a different strain also.

Click to expand...

I'm not so sure about the bottling yeast. Why would they? In any case, looking at their beer list, I would think they use ore than one yeast as it ranges from lager, through btter and stout, to a hybrid with a non beer yeast and at least one saison. Sure, it ferments quick and settles rapidly, but it doesn't stick to the bottom of the bottle like, say, Fermentis F2 does and you need to be careful f you want a clear pint. Moreover, it ferments more than just the simple sugars in the mash and has a nice character of its own; that is, it adds something of itself to the beer, a certain fruitiness.
But who knows. My objective was to give those who like to experiment a heads up that this is a yeast that's certainly worth trying in a bitter. I'll be using it quite a bit as I like the flavour.
Incidentally, I made two side-by-side batches one with TB and the other with M36 (I think) the Burton Union offering from MJ. Booth were good, but the TB was the better of the two.