Anyone tried this yeast? The LHBS had split a batch and fermented one part at 65(ish) and the other at 89 degrees. I expected the 89 version to a hot fusely mess, but I liked it better than the cooler version. It has some really good fruity esters. I think I’ll give this a shot next summer when my garage gets hot.
The manufacturer says up to 98 degrees, even.
http://www.omegayeast.com/portfolio/14158-2/
Is it a saison yeast? Says nothing of the sort in the link. 98F is insane. Kind of like Panama Jack’s Workhorse yeast is apparently good up into the 80s as a clean ale yeast.
Also, I’m curious why they feel the need to state that they are not associated with Wyeast or White Labs… seems kind of obvious.
It didn’t taste like a saison at all and I didn’t think to ask about gravities. It wasn’t dry, though.
They list Wyeast and White Lab equivalent strains on other pages, so I think that is boilerplate.
I think the statement is for clarity about the other language on the site comparing some of their products to WY and WL products. The Omega Labs folks have been critical of both WY and WL–particularly WL–for their quality control so that statement may also be a badge of honor for them.
This strain comes from farmhouse brewing but it isn’t a saison strain in the sense that it is not Belgian nor is it used by any Belgian or French brewers to make saisons. If I remember the lineage correctly, this yeast was acquired from a Norwegian farm where it was basically a homebrewing strain passed around local families. The author of Larsblog obtained some samples and sent them to NCYC. NCYC in turn propagated the strain and OYL purchased the strain from NCYC to put into production.
Interesting that a Scandinavian strain would be so tolerant of high fermentation temps. Norway’s record high is 96F, so this yeast could potentially go higher than any temp it was ever exposed to in “the wild”.