Has anyone been follow these guys? I'm assuming most of you aren't home brewers, but they're a local Clear Lake startup that is culturing their own proprietary blends/cultures of yeast for sale in the Houston and occasionally Austin/Dallas homebrew scene. They just recently started up and will be offering their first batch to yeast to those that have already signed up for their 'yeast buds' program vial email tonight and distributing allocations at Nobi Public house Saturday at noon, so even if you haven't been following them, it's a great opportunity to come out and meet these guys and support them in their endeavors. http://geminiyeast.wordpress.com/2014/01/18/gemini-yeast-labs/
A short summary of their lineup so far. GEM001 "Relic" Farmhouse Ale Yeast so far is showing itself to be a fun, unique farmhouse strain. It has the typical ester & spice profile of a farmhouse ale but also has a little bit of hefeweizen-like banana esters. Because of this, we're excited to try it in some weizen-inspired beers, just to see how it does. GEM002 Belgian Saison Yeast is a classic Belgian Saison strain. Citrus and black pepper typically dominate the flavor profile. We think this is actually several strains working together. Commercial variations of this strain typically stall, and our hope is keeping it a liquid culture and not isolating to a single colony will fix its stalling tendency. If keeping it free of non-brewers yeast contaminants proves too problematic, we will revisit our stance to not isolate it. The Brett C Saison Blend has some of the base yeast of GEM002, along with another culture that brought in some Brett C. This is my personal favorite yeast blend. The Brett C in it is incredible. It's got more fresh tropical fruit (mango/pineapple type) flavors than the typical funky tropical fruit (durian type) flavors I usually get from most Brett C strains. These cells are a little old, I would recommend using them as a secondary addition or making a good starter. I just couldn't wait until the next meetup to share this with you. The Yankee and Brett B Blend is an experiment we've been working on. Yankee is our culture of a popular mutated English ale yeast that puts out a lot of peach esters. The first test batch is being bottled this week, so this is a very un-tested blend. So far, the peach aromas are really interesting mixed with the musty Brett funk. Definitely reminiscent of Orval and Prairie ALE. (Our first test batch was highly hopped, so it's possible there is some lactic acid bacteria is hiding in there as well.)
