Where did 3711 come from?

I was recently at Thiriez, where this yeast has been said to come from, and in the opinion of the owner, 3711 is probably not from his brewery. After using this yeast many times and finally making it to Thiriez to try their range, I find that their beers don’t display the same yeast characteristics that any 3711 beers that I have brewed or drunk have had.

Thiriez gets their yeast from a bank in Brussels that they have an exclusive contract with, so no other breweries or banks can get it from the source. And the fact that 3711 is called "French Saison" would be funny if it was his yeast because it is actually a Belgian saison yeast that a French brewer buys.

I guess it is possible that Wyeast isolated it from a Thiriez bottle and got a mutated strain that behaves and tastes different, but that seems odd to me. If this yeast is not from Thiriez, then where?

The saison thread got me thinking about yeasts used to brew saison, so I thought I would put this out there.

Belgian banks have many strains of yeast that are not commercially available in the US, and traditional saison brewers would have used all kinds of different strains with different character. Dupont is the only Belgian brewer to use their yeast that I know of, and they have personally maintained it at the brewery for four generations now. Other saison brewers would have used other strains that might now be used at non-saison breweries or might only exist in banks at this point.

Blaugies is the one brewery that I think has a house character close to 3711, being very dry and somewhat spicy. I just had their La Vermontoise while in Brussels and was blown away by it.

Also, Dupont centrifuges out their primary yeast strain before bottling, and then adds a different strain for bottle conditioning, so it would be very difficult or impossible to culture the primary yeast out of a bottle. I have always wondered about the origins of the different "Belgian Saison" (I, II, III, etc) strains that White Labs and Wyeast sell and wonder if any are their primary yeast or if they are the bottling strain that might perform differently in a primary fermentation. Dupont was fermenting their beers up in the high 90s F when I was there, FWIW,

I know many people reference this guide, but I really don’t know how accurate it is or not. I’d be interested to see Kris’ sources on them, or how he came to the conclusions that he came to. I think many of them are seen as "common knowledge" sorts of things, but I think that your experience may speak to a bit of common misunderstanding

http://www.mrmalty.com/yeast.htm

Also, FWIW, I’ve only had a single beer (that I can recall) that was from Thiriez. It was a hoppy something or other, so the yeast character was muted a bit, but I *thought* I picked out the 3711 character in it. However, this may simply be a case of my expectations influencing my perceptions.

Interesting. Do you think the origin of these strains is really important? You already mentioned how a lot of these strains probably mutate with the high fermentation temps. I’ve heard some people can get results they like by combining different strains e.g. using Dupont to start and then finishing with 3711.

I’m brewing up a hoppy Belgian ale tommorow morning with a yeast I cultured up from a couple semi-fresh bottles from De la Senne. I’m really excited to see how that one turns out.

Originally posted by SamGamgee
Dupont was fermenting their beers up in the high 90s F when I was there, FWIW,

Originally posted by joeneugs
Interesting. Do you think the origin of these strains is really important? You already mentioned how a lot of these strains probably mutate with the high fermentation temps. I’ve heard some people can get results they like by combining different strains e.g. using Dupont to start and then finishing with 3711.

I’m brewing up a hoppy Belgian ale tommorow morning with a yeast I cultured up from a couple semi-fresh bottles from De la Senne. I’m really excited to see how that one turns out.

Recently brewed a batch of saison (no really, it’s a saison, I think) with the Wallonian Farmhouse yeast from Yeast Bay, reputed to be from Fantome. Have yet to taste the result though.

Originally posted by beastiefan2k

Originally posted by SamGamgee
Dupont was fermenting their beers up in the high 90s F when I was there, FWIW,

oh my.

Originally posted by SamGamgee
Blaugies is the one brewery that I think has a house character close to 3711, being very dry and somewhat spicy. I just had their La Vermontoise while in Brussels and was blown away by it.