St Stefanus Blonde

[BlackRegent]

A had a bottle of this for the first time at the weekend.

It is an exceptional beer and there were a couple of questions I have about how it is made.

The head was superb and possibly the most appetising beer foam I have ever come across. It was light but kept its form to the very end. It had the consistency of a light whipped cream, Does anyone have any insight on how they achieve this?

They also use a proprietary yeast in their bottle conditioning, which they call "Jerumanus". There is hardly anything on this yeast online, apart from an old Home Brew Talk thread that goes nowhere and a twitter post from a (now defunct) twitter account for St Stefanus which describes it as a 'wild' yeast. I'm assuming it's a Brett strain and has a similar effect to Orval, but does anyone know anything more about this yeast? I'm currently trying to culture it up to use as a bottling yeast for a future Belgian blonde.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

The head was superb and possibly the most appetising beer foam I have ever come across. It was light but kept its form to the very end. It had the consistency of a light whipped cream, Does anyone have any insight on how they achieve this?

This article about Duvel may be helpful - Duvel force-carb to 2.25 vol then add fresh yeast and sugar to bottle condition up to 4.3 vol of CO2 - which I wouldn't recommend with "normal" bottles.
Duvel's In The Detail — Duvel Moortgat's Iconic Belgian Golden Strong Ale

If you have the technology, then I'd aim to do a Dupont-style ramp mash - they ramp from 45°C to 72°C over 90+ minutes.

They also use a proprietary yeast in their bottle conditioning, which they call "Jerumanus". There is hardly anything on this yeast online, apart from an old Home Brew Talk thread that goes nowhere and a twitter post from a (now defunct) twitter account for St Stefanus which describes it as a 'wild' yeast. I'm assuming it's a Brett strain and has a similar effect to Orval, but does anyone know anything more about this yeast? I'm currently trying to culture it up to use as a bottling yeast for a future Belgian blonde.

If you've not found it, this is the article referred to on HBT, and this review from Difford's says :
"St. Stefanus is brewed using three different yeasts, including the Jerumanus yeast strain, cultivated by microbiologist, Janis Jerumanus and entrusted to the Van Steenberge brewery by the monks of Saint Stefanus. Brewed with Pilsner pale and Munich malts and Saaz hops. The beer benefits from a four-week maturation period, after which the original yeast is removed by filtration and the other two strains added. The bottles are cellared to allow secondary fermentation in the bottle to begin prior to being released unpasteurised. Launched in the UK in October 2011."

So that sounds like they add a "proper" bottling yeast to carbonate and to flocculate the other one, and this mysterious Jerumanus "strain" (implying there's just 1 strain?). I don't recall much Brett character from St Stephanus, it's been a while since I've had it though. Given that it needs to be stable enough to be sold in supermarkets, I doubt it's anything too weird or diastatic?