Al's East Coast Yeast

I see it is only available on one website, but many of the strains/blends are unavailable. Does he release things like the bugfarm and some of the more obscure brett strains staggered throughout the year, or does he have a particular time of year for these releases?

It’s super boutique and limited production.  Use the notification option to keep track of the strains you want. I think Love2Brew also mentions new availability in their emails.

got it, any idea if there is a certain time of year they happen though?

I’d check the MTF facebook page. Seems to be easier to score than the bootleg biology cultures.

mtf? unfortunately, I don’t have a facebook account.

Milk the Funk. Great source for info on the boutique/independent  labs.

According to his contact page, his homebrew pitches are essentially overrun commercial pitches. I don’t think it was always this way. BugFarm pops up frequently.

awesome, thanks for the info

Before he started taking commercial orders there would be waves of homebrew pitches on a fairly frequent basis. They were small and hard to come by because at the time it was just him, Wyeast and White Labs for liquid yeasts. But they were more frequent than what we see now.

Now he does a lot of commercial pitches and releases out the leftovers as homebrew pitches. I doubt many commercial breweries order his sacc-only pitches which is why it’s mostly sour and brett releases these days.

BugFarm is available often. Bug County usually happens around fall into winter. He doesn’t seem to produce as much during the summer but we should start seeing a ramp in production as in previous years. I really like the Flanders Blend!