Wyeast and Rogue dispute over Pacman?

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dcHokie

dcHokie

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I use Wyeast 1764 Rogue's Pacman strain as a house yeast for many of my clean beers. This weekend, I asked the lhbs owner if he knew when it might be "re-released" again. He claimed that there is a serious dispute between Wyeast and Rogue about either financial aspects of their yeast banking or the terms of their Private Collection release relationship and that it could be a long, long time before it comes out again. I can't find any info online to support this, does anyone know anything else?
 
I think MoreBeer offers a substantially similar, if not exact same, yeast strain called San Diego Super Yeast.
 
MoreBeer says 1764 is currently out of stock but on backorder and will arrive around 02/11/13. I was looking to buy some yesterday, and this was the only place I found it still available. Guess we'll see next week what the real status is.
 
maltoftheearth said:
I think MoreBeer offers a substantially similar, if not exact same, yeast strain called San Diego Super Yeast.
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SDSY, while a nice yeast, is definitely not the same as Pac Man which is in a class by itself. I don't know where this notion that the two yeast are the same/similar came about but if you have used each one you will know that this is simply not the case.
 
Scroto said:
Is culturing it up from their Shakespeare Stout no longer an option?
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Sure. Personally, I have a few generations of 1764 banked, but you can always build up from Rogue bottles.

Montanaandy said:
SDSY, while a nice yeast, is definitely not the same as Pac Man which is in a class by itself. I don't know where this notion that the two yeast are the same/similar came about but if you have used each one you will know that this is simply not the case...
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Agree.


Just to clarify the post, I'm not currently looking for PacMan, or substitutions, I was mostly just curious if these rumblings have any merit?
 
Just to clarify the post, I'm not currently looking for PacMan, or substitutions, I was mostly just curious if these rumblings have any merit?[/QUOTE]

I will ask the local LHBS guy who has stocked Wyeast since its inception, and who always has PacMan available on a regular basis at his store (via third party distribution with Wyeast) if he has heard anything about a Rogue/Wyeast fight. If anyone would know, this guy would. I too am very interested in this because this is my go-to yeast...
 
I haven't heard any such rumblings, but if they should turn serious and we don't get pacman again, it can always be harvested from a number of Rogue bottle-conditioned ales.
 
daksin said:
I haven't heard any such rumblings, but if they should turn serious and we don't get pacman again, it can always be harvested from a number of Rogue bottle-conditioned ales.
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It sure is nice/easier to pitch a smack pack into a flask on the stir plate rather than having to grow the yeast up from bottle dregs...
 
I haven't heard anything, but a homebrew shop that sells BrewCraft's licensed Rogue clone kits can get the Wyeast smack-pacs of Pacman through BrewCraft (not through direct order with Wyeast) anytime. It's kind of a pain really, once every couple months I'll have to do the yeast order through BrewCraft just to get the Pacman, but I have to order enough to justify the shipping cost, which due to the nature of the product has to be at least second day air, with cold packs.

I have noticed that none of the private collection strains in the past couple years has been brewery specific, I do have some Fat Tire Ale yeast in my frozen bank from when that was released.

Edit: actually I went back and looked and it was 2007 when they released Flying Dog Ale (1st quarter) and Fat Tire (4th quarter). Pacman was last released as a PC strain in 2010 but as I mentioned earlier, if your LHBS sells the Rogue clone kits they can get it anytime.
 
camiller said:
I haven't heard anything, but a homebrew shop that sells BrewCraft's licensed Rogue clone kits can get the Wyeast smack-pacs of Pacman through BrewCraft (not through direct order with Wyeast) anytime. It's kind of a pain really, once every couple months I'll have to do the yeast order through BrewCraft just to get the Pacman, but I have to order enough to justify the shipping cost, which due to the nature of the product has to be at least second day air, with cold packs.

This is what I was referring to in my earlier post (I could not remember "BrewCraft"). We go though the same shenanigans here with ordering PacMan.

A bit puzzling that they can sell it outside of the Rogue kits and that you can essentially get it anytime you want (albeit given the aforementioned constraints) yet Wyeast doesn't/are not allowed by Rogue to make it a regular part of the lineup. Perhaps Wyeast and Rogue are at odds as to what % Rogue should receive for licensing their yeast to Wyeast.

Hopefully we will still be able to get it via Brewcraft...
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Montanaandy said:
This is what I was referring to in my earlier post (I could not remember "BrewCraft"). We go though the same shenanigans here with ordering PacMan.

A bit puzzling that they can sell it outside of the Rogue kits and that you can essentially get it anytime you want (albeit given the aforementioned constraints) yet Wyeast doesn't/are not allowed by Rogue to make it a regular part of the lineup. Perhaps Wyeast and Rogue are at odds as to what % Rogue should receive for licensing their yeast to Wyeast.

Hopefully we will still be able to get it via Brewcraft...
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Not really puzzling. Lots of microbreweries don't have their own in house yeast lab and have professional labs prep pitchable quantities for them. I'm sure Wyeast has many, many breweries proprietary yeast strains that they don't ever issue to homebrew channels (I believe that I have read that wyeast has several hundred if not more than a thousand yeast strains). I doubt that it is a dispute between Wyeast and Rogue, instead it is a exclusive contract BrewCraft has with Rogue to be the sole distributor. BrewCraft COULD limit the sale of yeast to the number of clone kits purchased by the LHBS, but you would have to allow for if packs of yeast expire (>6 months from manufacture date) and all the tracking probably wouldn't be worth it.
 
I grabbed 3 packs just to be sure at lhbs but most of the bigger retailers do seem to all be out of stock right now.
 
camiller said:
Not really puzzling. Lots of microbreweries don't have their own in house yeast lab and have professional labs prep pitchable quantities for them. I'm sure Wyeast has many, many breweries proprietary yeast strains that they don't ever issue to homebrew channels (I believe that I have read that wyeast has several hundred if not more than a thousand yeast strains). I doubt that it is a dispute between Wyeast and Rogue, instead it is a exclusive contract BrewCraft has with Rogue to be the sole distributor. BrewCraft COULD limit the sale of yeast to the number of clone kits purchased by the LHBS, but you would have to allow for if packs of yeast expire (>6 months from manufacture date) and all the tracking probably wouldn't be worth it.
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Can't speak for larger breweries but most smaller micro-breweries (at least in MT, CO) use "stock yeast" from Wyeast or White Labs (1968 probably the most popular) rather than proprietary yeast strains.

Ultimately Rogue would have the final say on the distribution of their proprietary yeast, and the availability. Wyeast generally features PacMan as a part of the PC Collection at least once per calendar year which perhaps is the agreement that they have reached on distribution between Wyeast and Brewcraft (Wyeast once per year, Brewcraft as part of their kits and I guess the remainder of the year). Hopefully at some point Rogue will allow Wyeast to have either an exclusive license for Pacman or at least the availability to make it available to home brewers year-round. I would think that if Rogue was all that concerned about the "off label" availability of PacMan via Brewcraft year round they would have taken action years ago...
 
Montanaandy said:
Can't speak for larger breweries but most smaller micro-breweries (at least in MT, CO) use "stock yeast" from Wyeast or White Labs (1968 probably the most popular) rather than proprietary yeast strains.

Ultimately Rogue would have the final say on the distribution of their proprietary yeast, and the availability. Wyeast generally features PacMan as a part of the PC Collection at least once per calendar year which perhaps is the agreement that they have reached on distribution between Wyeast and Brewcraft (Wyeast once per year, Brewcraft as part of their kits and I guess the remainder of the year). Hopefully at some point Rogue will allow Wyeast to have either an exclusive license for Pacman or at least the availability to make it available to home brewers year-round. I would think that if Rogue was all that concerned about the "off label" availability of PacMan via Brewcraft year round they would have taken action years ago...
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Pacman hasn't been a PC strain since 2010. I don't think the availability year round via BrewCraft is "off-label", I'm quite certain it is by license from Rogue. It is still manufactured and packaged by Wyeast, it is just that Wyeast will not sell it through the normal channel, only through BrewCraft.
 
Hmmm.... I have some brews I made with pacman a couple years ago that I still have a few bottles of stowed away. Wonder if it's too late to harvest... :D
 
camiller said:
Pacman hasn't been a PC strain since 2010. I don't think the availability year round via BrewCraft is "off-label", I'm quite certain it is by license from Rogue. It is still manufactured and packaged by Wyeast, it is just that Wyeast will not sell it through the normal channel, only through BrewCraft.
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Yep, it has been off the PC list since the 1st qtr of 2010 - didn't realize this because it has been available on a regular basis at the LHBS so I had just assumed that they were releasing it as a PC now and then. The majority of people who homebrew in these parts still use extract kits so there are frequent orders to Brewcraft for the Dead Man kit and the PacMan yeast order piggybacks on these orders.

Obviously Rogue has the final say in all of this since it is their proprietary yeast. I will continue to roll with the Rogue/Wyeast/Brewcraft malarky surrounding the availability of PacMan until Rogue either discontinues licensing their kits through Brewcraft and stops Wyeast from marketing PacMan or (hopefully) they will just allow Wyeast to add it to their roster and reach a fair licensing agreement.

While I enjoy the results provided with PacMan, in the end I can survive just fine with the Chico strain and a number of other yeast strains...
 
camiller said:
Pacman hasn't been a PC strain since 2010. I don't think the availability year round via BrewCraft is "off-label", I'm quite certain it is by license from Rogue. It is still manufactured and packaged by Wyeast, it is just that Wyeast will not sell it through the normal channel, only through BrewCraft.
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camiller, you were on point.

I contacted Wyeast and got this response: "This strain is exclusively distributed through Brewcraft USA in Portland, Oregon, year round. Your favorite homebrew shop can order from them."
 

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