Escarpment Labs Visit 2018

This month instead of our usual club meeting, we had a very special tour from Richard Preiss of Guelph’s own Escarpment Labs. Richard explained their yeast growth process in the “brewery-like” part of the facility which included some tips on how to maximize yeast health and freshness.

Richard then invited us into the lab to talk about the importance of quality control for the yeast lab. We got to see the plates containing the yeast cultures that eventually get grown into full sized brewery pitches, as well as the growth media they use to check for contamination.

In the lab learning about yeast from Richard.

At this point, Richard answered many questions including, but not limited to: diastatic yeast contamination, mixed fermentation ratios and how to best store harvested yeast slurries. It was very informative and I think it’s safe to say that the group learned a lot about yeast!

After the tour, we had a small bottle share. We were able to try some of the beer that Escarpment labs had made with their yeast, and some interesting things they were trying out. It was noted by many attendees that many of the beers brought by the members were very high quality and delicious.

We also got to pick up some ultra fresh homebrew sized pitches of Escarpment Labs yeast. There’s no doubt that this yeast will be used to make more awesome beer in the future.

Finally, we would like to thank Richard and Escarpment Labs for hosting us. It was a very informative session and we got some great yeast out of it as well.