BBBELG2 – OB Belgian Ale
Availability: Core culture. Available with every homebrew culture presale release (3 times per year)
Source: A traditional Belgian Oud Bruin producer.
🏆 OB Belgian helped win a Gold medal in Belgian Ale (National Homebrew Competition 2022) for Jordan Folks 🏆
OB is a rare treat. Never previously commercially available, this is the pure, clean yeast culture used to primary ferment a highly regarded traditional Belgian Oud Bruin. This culture does not contain Brett or Lactic Acid Bacteria.
Creates totally unique Belgian table beers and Abbey-style ales that are dry, pleasantly spicy, ester driven, and taste of candied sugar.
When producing traditional mixed fermentation Belgian beers we recommend copitching, or pitching in secondary, our Sour Solera Blend or Mad Fermentationist Saison cultures.
Ordering Information:
🚀🚀🚀 This homebrew culture qualifies for FAST Flat Rate Shipping (2 Day Air) with NO order minimum!
Please note that temperatures may vary wildly during shipment and after delivery. We highly recommend shipping to a person/location that can immediately refrigerate the culture once delivered.
Before ordering, please read Bootleg Biology’s homebrew culture shipping policy. By ordering cultures, you are agreeing to this policy. Thank you!
Commercial Brewers: Please visit our Commercial Pitches page to order 1 to 30BBL sized pitches.
Rob Rogers –
I just finished kegging my halloween “Ghoul Bruin” beer fermented with the OB. It’s started at 1.1 and 11 days later, it finished around 1.019. It could have kept going, but I wanted to keep it from getting too dry. Wonderful westvleteren characteristics…i used chocolate wheat and special belgian 2 malts and OB played wonderfully with them: notes of dates, stone fruit, and a chocolatey-coffee bitter finish. The coolest non-tasting related feature was that each time i transferred the beer, the yeast cake was so well formed, my siphon barely sucked up any trube and i didn’t have to leave any beer behind. My next plan for the OB is to go lighter and see how it’ll do making a golden strong.
Jordan Folks (verified owner) –
This yeast makes phenomenal Trappist style beers! Seriously the best Trappist strain I’ve ever used. Just won NHC Gold in Belgian Ale for my Trappist Single – this yeast was my secret weapon. Started fermentation at about 65, let it ride there for a few days, then slowly ramped to 75 to finish out. 1.050 to 1.005. Rumor has it this may be the Westy strain – whatever it is, it is the best!
Craig Hairrell (verified owner) –
I generally prefer my beers drier than most, so this diastatic yeast with pleasant spicy esters fits my brewing style. I brewed a Belgian Single, too. It’s a style I have not brewed in the past and I’m pushing the boundaries of ABV on it with this strain. It fermented very quickly at 65F, with the majority of the fermentation being complete during Day 3. I let it sit a few extra days unchilled to let it clean up and to finish dropping another couple of SG points. I cold-crashed a few days, then kegged, rather than putting into bottles. I would say this yeast is moderately flocculant. While the yeast is clumpy, they are quite soft clumps and it looks like it’ll take a fair bit of time or fining to clear. Flavor is excellent. I mostly taste spicy clove character from the yeast, which nicely complements the malt character from the Belgian and German Pilsner malts. Classic Belgian flavor is what I’d call it.
Steve Daniel (verified owner) –
The description of this yeast is spot on. I used it in a belgian dubbel that called for 90L candi, 6 different specialty malts, and table sugar. The beer femented aggressively from 1.068 to 1.009 in about 2 weeks at 65F. The initial samples had a big banana and bubblegum nose. This subsided to a pleasant fruity, clove-y aroma and flavor after aging in the keg a couple weeks. The resulting beer was full but dry, with a pleasing clove and fruit flavor typical in this style. The candi sugar and specialty malts are well incorporated and not muted. Despite it’s robust 7.8% ABV, this beer is remarkably crushable. It’s flavor packed, smooth, and dry, but it also has a good amount of residual sweetness to carry it. This yeast is a winner. Highly recommended.