GOOD TIMES WITH OUR YEAST GUY

What does your pint of beer on a Friday night have in common with your slice of sourdough on a Saturday? Both brewers and bakers live and die by this not-very-sexy sounding ingredient: yeast. Although brewers and bakers use a very different type of yeast, whether it’s the folks at Mark’s Bread (BBF’s go-to) or your favourite brewery, odd are we have our own signature ‘house’ strain. It’s not a secret ingredient, think of it more like a sourdough starter. Shout out to 2020 for educating us all on how that one works!

And yet, we rarely talk about yeast, not like we do with malt and hops. Together with water, these are the 4 ingredients required to make any classic beer. For the more, ahem, boundary-pushing styles such as doughnut stouts and berry sours, you’re also looking at adding a 5th ingredient. This can be messy and unpredictable, to say the least, and it isn’t what we’re about at BBF. No, we’re here to talk about how yeast is the backbone of a brewhouse. 

Fresh for summer 2025, we’ve taken a page out the Vedett playbook, and created the ultimate SUMMER BELGIAN EXTRA WHITE. Here to chat us through the process is Head Brewer, Tristan. “With GOOD TIMES, VEDETT TIMES, I got in touch with Chris at Surebrew, who’s my yeast man, my yeast guy, who was able to sort me out with a Vedett Wit clone. For a Wit, wheat beer, aka a French Blanche beer, you need to use a specialised yeast, as well as a minimum 40% wheat malt bill.” That’s the technicality. How’s it tasting? “It doesn’t carry through the banana of say a Hefeweizen, it’s lighter, it really suits the orange, coriander, bit of lemon and citrus notes.”

TRAIL BREAKER is another beer fresh out the tanks right now, showcasing a special yeast. “This one uses a beautiful Norweigan Kveik yeast, a Farmhouse Yeast allowing a rapid high temp fermentation. The first time we brewed Trail Breaker was for part of the ROAM SERIES as a cask beer, then it ventured into the can and keg world. We’re winding it back to cask this time.” How would Tristan describe it the flavours from the yeast, compared to GOOD TIMES? “Totally different beer. Citrus, orange, it’s got out-there, quirky flavours, which wouldn’t normally be acceptable for us in cask… paired with certain hops such as Citra and Sabro for a bit of dill, tropical fruit… the flavours [from the hops] expand and explode”. Ed’s note: if you want a double taste explosion, we’re giving the same yeast another spin in TRAVERSE.

Recreating famous yeasts is something our yeast guy does well, and it’s spawned a range of homages to our favourite Belgian beers such as SYMPATHY FOR DELIRIUM and PAINT IT TRAP. How does Tristan go about brewing these beers? “Chris will tell me what he’s got available ‘off the shelf’, if you like, from his yeast brink, but he can also grow a yeast, propagate it up, enough for a full brew from a single lovely bottle of beer with sediment left in.”  

The elephant in the room is that these Belgian homages are not, of course, our mainstay. Having a unique yeast strain is one of the reasons you get a consistently World-Class taste with every one of our brews, from FORTITUDE to INDEPENDENCE. We know how to commit; BBF has been using the same 'house' ale strain for around 18 years. Rest assured, we’ve got it safely stored with Chris. Each batch will run 16 times, until it gets tired (same, girl, same) or until off flavours, mutants, are created. Then he will send over a new propagation from his yeast 'brink' (storage).  

“It’s a big part of the BBF identity,” explains Tristan. “When you have your own yeast strain you have that distinctive flavour. It’s the same for all the big breweries. Anyone can put a Fuller’s beer in front of me, and I will be able to tell you it’s one of theirs, it’s so distinctive.” 

Since the inception of INFINITY 4.6%, we’ve also had our own ‘Bock’ lager strain, now featuring in INFINITY’s counter-lager, GRAVITY 4.1%. It’s the invisible string connecting Heaven and Earth. 

Get a hold of GOOD TIMES VEDETT TIMES online or try on draught at your local BBF venue.