A young Belgian micro-brewer, who wants to stay anonymous, planned to create a high alcohol Christmas beer for the winter of 2000-2001.
Out of fear that his own yeast would not be able to attain the 12 % alcohol by volume he was aiming at, he decided to go to France and buy wine yeast. So, he contacted a famous French winery, where he could explain his problem.
The winery pointed the brewer to the official French Institut Oenologique, where the wineries buy their dried yeast for the vinification of their reds, that attain up to 14 % alcohol by volume. When the brewer came home with his yeast, he looked closely at the packaging and found out the yeast he bought was “saccharomyces cerevisiae cerivisiae”.
Indeed beer yeast !!!