Bella Sky C2 Brett Blonde, Tasting Session

Aroma:  Overripe pear mixed with the aromas you would expect walking into a lumberyard.  Small amounts of a gritty hay like hint also linger about. 

Appearance:  A breathtaking golden yellow, crystal clear liquid just asking to be consumed in the tulip.  A perfect lace adorns the top of the glass.  Thin, yet resilient.  The constant bubbles stream up constantly from the D etched on the bottom of the glass. 


Flavor:  Not what I expected vs the nose, very Saison like, crisp and clean-ish.  Hints of green mellon and straw, no woody flavors, but I get a very distinct wood cellulose taste on the back of my mouth.  Not an oak taste, but a fermented in wood gritty feel.  The beer has a kick at the end related to the woody cellulose flavor.  A wet straw finish would be the best descriptor, but since it finishes so clean and dry it is hard to get enough lingering flavor to describe it.  It does make you drink the glass quickly, being so dry.  No diacetyl, no astringency, very cleanly brewed fermentation wise.

Mouthfeel:  Overly sharp and dry.  Continuing on the almost gritty feel.... Very effervescent and refreshing.  It has a good amount of body, not thin feeling at all.  


Overall Impression:  This is a great all day drinking beer.  The dry quality to it really tricks you into drinking more of it.  Sessionable with a sharp dirty dryness that keeps me coming back for more.  Given this is a wild yeast, with no specs on it, I feel this example is a solid attempt at defining a flavor profile for it.


Brewing Timeline/Notes: I brewed this August 5th (after a long starter you can read about here) There was nothing out of the ordinary fermentation wise. 

Here is a link to the original post and recipe.  


There is something about this beer that makes me gitty.  Knowing this yeast was taken from a Cantillon Iris bottle, spontaneous fermented.  How long has this yeast been growing on the walls at Cantillon?  Maybe longer than I can trace my family history back.  The historic feel to this yeast is evident in the final product.  You know this yeast is wild and doesn't want to be domesticated.  The changes in flavor from the yeast starter into the final product is mind blowing.  Given the other C2 yeast reviews out there, I really can not answer a definitive result for this yeast.  Others explain overpowering, almost undrinkable wood flavors, while I get some in the noise, I do not find anything undrinkable about this yeast.  The wood cellulose feel I get in the beer is hard to explain, having a good backround in oak fermentation's, I don't know where the gritty-ness would come from without oak in the primary fermentation.  Either way it adds a quaff-able element to the drinking experience that is on the verge of overpowering.  Others also state they get a lot of strawberry in this yeast.  I am pulling strings to get this flavor.   While I did get notes of berry in the yeast starter, I was struggling to get anything berry related in the tasting sample. 

Either way, hats off to Dmitri at BKYeast for culturing this yeast for us to quaff.