New Yeast Company to Launch in Late October

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Biobrewer

Biobrewer

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Hi HBT,

Not sure if this post is acceptable material for this specific forum, but since I think it adds value to the brewing process by virtue of giving brewers more options with the yeast they use, I thought I would share.

For the last 8 months, I have been isolating and characterizing yeast and bacteria, and sharing the progress on Reddit as user "Biobrewer", same as on HBT. If you're interested, check out my submission history at www.reddit.com/user/Biobrewer/submitted/ and look through all of the past updates, including the most recent. Several people have encouraged me to share here, as they thought this community (which many Redditors are a part of) would be equally excited about what I have been doing, if not more.

About 5 or so months ago I decided to form a company called The Yeast Bay to make these strains I have been isolating available to the homebrewing and craft brewing communities. In short, things are going very well. We almost have our contract finalized with White Labs to do the contract manufacture of the yeast and bacteria, we are in the process of legally forming our company, have finished up final evaluation of all the strains we will be launching with and are expected to be going live with product to sell to both craft breweries and home brewers by the end of October. To be clear, e focus primarily on rare and commercially unavailable strains of yeast and bacteria.

Feel free to check us out at www.theyeastbay.com and join our subscriber list to get updates on our progress, launch and available product.

I plan on doing some extensive advertising on HBT once our logo is finalized, and am looking forward to helping the community access new yeast strains to provide the drinkers of their beers (brewers included!) with new sensory experiences.

Cheers!
 
EmeraldTab said:
Best of luck! Look forward to trying your product! :mug:
Click to expand...

Thanks for the support, EmeraldTab. Really looking forward to launching and having a positive affect on the brewing community. Once I get fully launched, I'm also hoping to give some presentations to interested homebrewing clubs in the Bay Area regarding yeast isolation and storage.

Thanks again for the encouragement!
 
+1 added you to my supplier list, hope to see try your products soon.
 
Very cool! You said you're contracting with White Labs; can you tell us how you're different from them and the other yeast producers?
 
TheZymurgist said:
Very cool! You said you're contracting with White Labs; can you tell us how you're different from them and the other yeast producers?
Click to expand...

I sure can. Basically, I have isolated ~50 yeast and bacteria up to this point that are either not commercially available at all or are incredibly difficult to find. I will not be selling any of the strains White Labs currently produces as a part of their product line. I may be able to use their strains in some of the blends I make, but I still need to clarify with them in the contract how that would work. The primary reason I went with a contract manufacturer is that the quality is really second to none. White Labs has been at this thing since 1995, and they truly are an industry leader with respect to yeast banking, propagation, packaging and quality control. It cost me more than if I made and packaged it my self, but in the end, quality trumps everything else. People can feel safe and confident knowing that the yeast was made and packaged in a professional facility by people who do this for a living.

Basically, I have a focus on yeast that is either not commercially available or rare, and aim to provide the highest quality culture possible.

Cheers!
 
reed1911 said:
+1 added you to my supplier list, hope to see try your products soon.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot. When you say supplier list, does that mean you own/manage a retail homebrewing store? If so, just a heads up, we will not be doing wholesale of our strains and they will only be available directly through our website, www.theyeastbay.com.

If you mean your supplier list as a list kept by you as an individual homebrewer, then you're good, and thanks for adding us to it!

Cheers!
 
Biobrewer said:
I sure can. Basically, I have isolated ~50 yeast and bacteria up to this point that are either not commercially available at all or are incredibly difficult to find. I will not be selling any of the strains White Labs currently produces as a part of their product line. I may be able to use their strains in some of the blends I make, but I still need to clarify with them in the contract how that would work. The primary reason I went with a contract manufacturer is that the quality is really second to none. White Labs has been at this thing since 1995, and they truly are an industry leader with respect to yeast banking, propagation, packaging and quality control. It cost me more than if I made and packaged it my self, but in the end, quality trumps everything else. People can feel safe and confident knowing that the yeast was made and packaged in a professional facility by people who do this for a living.

Basically, I have a focus on yeast that is either not commercially available or rare, and aim to provide the highest quality culture possible.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Excellent! Very excited for you, and look forward to using your products!!
 
Awesome to hear that you're going forward with this. I heard your story from someone in a popular 'can you clone it' thread here, and I've been keeping an eye on your progress on reddit. Let's just say that I'm confident that your "vermont ale" will do quite well. There's a real shortage of it and still a strong demand. Yeastgeek sold out of their last run in MINUTES.
 
I will definitely purchase your Brett and Pedio blends. Look forward to getting funky with your stuff
 
BeerGrylls said:
Awesome to hear that you're going forward with this. I heard your story from someone in a popular 'can you clone it' thread here, and I've been keeping an eye on your progress on reddit. Let's just say that I'm confident that your "vermont ale" will do quite well. There's a real shortage of it and still a strong demand. Yeastgeek sold out of their last run in MINUTES.
Click to expand...

I thought he said they'd be offering yeast that no other suppliers carry?
 
My LHBS is always looking for new yeast strains and we have a local homebrew club that does all sorts of yeast/hop experiments. I'm going to be there today (it's beer trading day) and will bring your URL along.

Is your Vermont Ale yeast similar to GigaYeast's GY054 (Vermont IPA Yeast, used to make Heady Topper), or is this just a coincidental similar name? I believe they refer to it as Conan yeast.

That said, do you have to jump through any legal hoops to offer yeast strains that already exist elsewhere? I don't know that yeast can be trademarked, or how all of that works.
 
tinytowers said:
I thought he said they'd be offering yeast that no other suppliers carry?
Click to expand...

Many of them are going to be things that are not on the market, yes. However, some of them are going to be rare strains that are difficult to get. I need to clarify that more. I had this as my initial mission statement:

"Provide commercially unavailable and rare yeast and bacteria strains to the homebrewing and craft brewing communities in high quality liquid culture."

My wife, rightfully so, thought there were too many "ands" and it seemed a bit wordy, which I agreed with. So, I removed the "and rare" all together. I have since reinserted "or rare" to make it more clear.

Hope that helps! Cheers!
 
BeerGrylls said:
Small asterisk. I think he means not widely available (Fermentis, Wyeast, White Labs). There are some small operations that offer it, such as east coast yeast, gigayeast, and yeastgeek.
Click to expand...

Thanks for providing the clarification :)

I posted a reply as well that helps clear that up a little bit. Cheers!
 
Veronis said:
Is your Vermont Ale yeast similar to GigaYeast's GY054 (Vermont IPA Yeast, used to make Heady Topper), or is this just a coincidental similar name? I believe they refer to it as Conan yeast.

That said, do you have to jump through any legal hoops to offer yeast strains that already exist elsewhere? I don't know that yeast can be trademarked, or how all of that works.
Click to expand...

So far as GigaYeast goes, I will not comment on whether it is the same strain, because I have not asked Jim Withee, the owner. I have however spoken with Jim in the past about starting my company, and one thing I can say is that GigaYeast is a top of the line operation, and Jim really knows his stuff and has a ridiculous amount of experience with yeast. He actually gave me some good pointers and was a super helpful resource as I began this little journey of mine.

So far as legal hoops, not really. Starting my company and dealing with all of those legalities was tough. However, with respect to yeast strains, no one person "owns" them. There is a stipulation in my contract that I will not simply repackage and sell White Lab strain as they currently exist, which would be encroaching on their market and something I wouldn't do anyways. The only IP that is truly associated with a yeast strain offerd by a company is their name for it (probably trademarked) and maybe their proprietary packaging.

You really do have to be careful with naming things, so my IP guy tells me. For example I see YeastGeek has thrown around "Conan" in parentheses next to "Green Mountain Ale" on their Twitter feed. That could be incredibly dangerous for them because, if Conan is trademarked and I believe it is, unless they have the express consent of The Alchemist to use that name, they are opening themselves up to big time liability via trademark infringement if Alchemist was to catch wind of that. Also, trademark infringement is almost always litigated or settled out of court, due to the laws being such that if a trademark holder does not defend against infringement and an infringer can prove the trademark holder has done nothing to fight known infringement in the past, the trademark holder loses rights to the trademark. Also, if the infringed party can prove a company (infringer) has not legally formed a business (and therefore is not properly protected), intermingled finance or has knowingly not carried the proper insurance, they can go after personal assets, which is scary (to me anyways!).

So, are their legal concerns? Always. I am confident though that I have been smart about the way I have formed my business, set up my finances and gone about naming products. The name of products definitely needs to be ambiguous and un-trademarked, which is something I have looked into for my own strains.

Cheers!
 
Biobrewer, I thought I recalled seeing this info on Reddit, but can't find it now. Are you selling pitchable amounts of yeast, or some smaller amount that we'll need to start / step-start?
 
BeerGrylls said:
Biobrewer, I thought I recalled seeing this info on Reddit, but can't find it now. Are you selling pitchable amounts of yeast, or some smaller amount that we'll need to start / step-start?
Click to expand...

I initially had an idea to sell smaller quantities, and that was a very early update. Should still be in my submitted tab. But after my conversation with Jim Withee of GigaYeast, I was convinced of 2 things:

1) Higher cell count makes it more accessible and usable by more brewers.

2) A contract manufacturer with state-of-the-art equipment will produce more cells for me than I will ever be able to create at home.

So, that is why I evolved towards a larger cell count and finding a contract manufacturer. With White Labs, all the Brett, Sacch and bacteria strains will be at the same concentration that their own strains are packaged at.

Cheers!
 
Veronis said:
For posterity, here's the original Reddit post in which Biobrewer originally discussed considering shipping smaller amounts, and his reasoning: http://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing..._count_and_volume_for_the_yeast_company_i_am/

Here are the rest of the submissions (from the OP): http://www.reddit.com/user/Biobrewer/submitted/
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing the old posts. That first one was pre-contract manufacturer. A lot of that reasoning is kind of turned on its head now that I am lining up manufacture through White Labs. Shipping would have definitely been a little cheaper, but I think in the end, after posting more and more on the issue, higher pitch quantities are a convenience factor that people like. Gotta side with the people!
 
Biobrewer said:
So far as legal hoops, not really. Starting my company and dealing with all of those legalities was tough. However, with respect to yeast strains, no one person "owns" them. There is a stipulation in my contract that I will not simply repackage and sell White Lab strain as they currently exist, which would be encroaching on their market and something I wouldn't do anyways. The only IP that is truly associated with a yeast strain offerd by a company is their name for it (probably trademarked) and maybe their proprietary packaging.
Click to expand...

You mentioned not being able to package and sell any strains that White Labs sells. What about the reciprocal? Is there something in your contract that says that White Labs won't simply start selling "your" strains? It would surprise me if they agreed to not do that considering they could isolate and sell at least some of your strains from the same commercial sources that you did.
 
lshaner said:
You mentioned not being able to package and sell any strains that White Labs sells. What about the reciprocal? Is there something in your contract that says that White Labs won't simply start selling "your" strains? It would surprise me if they agreed to not do that considering they could isolate and sell at least some of your strains from the same commercial sources that you did.
Click to expand...

I should not get into specific language of contract, as the specifics are confidential and have not even been agreed to at this time, but basically, they can isolate and sell whatever they wish. They wouldn't be able use my cell stocks to make their own product, but they could certainly isolate whatever they want, brand it as they wish, and sell it.
 
This is awesome. I definitely plan on browsing your wild yeast collection once you're selling.

One request: Please set up an amazon market. It's mostly out of convenience so that I don't have to retype my CC info every time. I don't know how much they skim off the top, so I understand if you don't.
 
marvaden said:
This is awesome. I definitely plan on browsing your wild yeast collection once you're selling.

One request: Please set up an amazon market. It's mostly out of convenience so that I don't have to retype my CC info every time. I don't know how much they skim off the top, so I understand if you don't.
Click to expand...

Not sure if I will have an amazon market or not. At the beginning, I'm going to try to keep it as simple as possible. We'll see where it can go from there though!
 
Biobrewer said:
I initially had an idea to sell smaller quantities, and that was a very early update. Should still be in my submitted tab. But after my conversation with Jim Withee of GigaYeast, I was convinced of 2 things:

1) Higher cell count makes it more accessible and usable by more brewers.

2) A contract manufacturer with state-of-the-art equipment will produce more cells for me than I will ever be able to create at home.

So, that is why I evolved towards a larger cell count and finding a contract manufacturer. With White Labs, all the Brett, Sacch and bacteria strains will be at the same concentration that their own strains are packaged at.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Will the packages be 200 billion cells? And I look forward to trying some new strains of yeast. And if it gets me out of building starters I'm sold already!
 
will_rouse said:
Will the packages be 200 billion cells? And I look forward to trying some new strains of yeast. And if it gets me out of building starters I'm sold already!
Click to expand...

Hi!

So, provided we finalize our contact with White Labs (which we fully expect in the near future), all of the Saccharomyces, Brettanomyces and bacteria strains will be provided in the same concentrations as their own products. I believe Saccharomyces is ~100 billion cells/vial and the Brettanomyces and bacteria are typically 2-3 billion cells/vial. Hope that helps!
 
Tried to purchase some yeast, but I show no indication your site is secure. No lock icon and no https:. Sorry, but too many problems out there in the www without some level of security. Please tell me I'm wrong!
 
Gwren,

I believe this is mostly due to the fact that the store is not up and running yet. Once all the legal stuff is square, the purchasing system will go through https, but you don't need that level of security while just at the pre-checkout stage. Look at amazon for example of this being already standard practice for online shopping. Let's see what security is put in place once the site allows purchases to be made.

In this regard, Biobrewer, are you planning to do a home grown checkout or are you going to use a third party option, like Paypal's API? I would suggest the latter for at least legal CYA reasons.
 
gwren said:
Tried to purchase some yeast, but I show no indication your site is secure. No lock icon and no https:. Sorry, but too many problems out there in the www without some level of security. Please tell me I'm wrong!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the inquiry.

First off, we are in the process of finalizing our contract with White Labs (just had another contact with Neva today, and we are on the home stretch), banking our strains and getting product. Probably will be around mid-October time frame.

So far as the security on the site, you have absolutely nothing to be concerned about. I am currently in the process of legally forming the business. Once I get my articles of organization and my seller's permit, only then I can open up my bank accounts, but not before then. Once I open my bank accounts, I can connect my site to Stripe (who requires an open and active bank account to connect), who is the payment processor for Squarespace. I hesitated to connect it using my personal account just to get the Stripe up and going, because that would violate the way LLCs are supposed to be set up financially. Plus, I'm not selling product yet, so there is no real rush to connect it.

Stripe is incredibly secure, PCI compliant and all checkout is served over SSL:

http://help.squarespace.com/customer/portal/articles/938628-stripe-faq

So, yes, all of the necessary security precautions will be taken prior to accepting payments. Join the mailing list, and you'll know when we go live!

Cheers!
 
marvaden said:
In this regard, Biobrewer, are you planning to do a home grown checkout or are you going to use a third party option, like Paypal's API? I would suggest the latter for at least legal CYA reasons.
Click to expand...

I will be accepting payments through Stripe, who is the company Squarespace goes through for their e-commerce sites. I have heard good things about it.

Here's a little info on the level of security Stripe provides:

http://help.squarespace.com/customer/portal/articles/938628-stripe-faq

Cheers!
 
Biobrewer,

On your website it says that your wild yeast is still under evaluation. Do you have any informal notes that you can share about the different blends you have?
 
marvaden said:
Biobrewer,

On your website it says that your wild yeast is still under evaluation. Do you have any informal notes that you can share about the different blends you have?
Click to expand...

My plan is for one to be more barnyard and another to be more fruity. I tried some bottles last night from all of the single strains, but they weren't completely carbonated. I was able to get a good idea though. Will definitely be more clear in the coming weeks.

I am also working on some single strains of Brett as well that will likely be products by the end of the year or a little after. Sadly, it just takes so darn long to evaluate these yeast, way longer than Saccharomyces sp.

Cheers
 
Hopefully you will have your strains available to the savages to the north!:cross:
 

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