RVA 263 Ghost Ale

I am sure some people here have used it. I have a vile of it and am planning on using it soon but was wondering if it has the normal Dupont yeast tendency to stall for a while then come back to life or if it is more like 3711 and just blasts through the wort. Just wondering if it plays nice or if it is finicky.

Bump.

Having never used it, I doubt it's that finicky. The description states that it is still efficient at lower temperatures. Let me know how it turns out, I've been wanting to try it.

I started a thread on it a few months back
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=525584

Thanks. I brewed with it yesterday and it took off. Underpitched it by ~1/3 and in 4 hours it was rocking. My ferm chamber was working hard to keep up.

Is this a pure sacch strain, or does it eventually go "wild" like Fantome does?

Reading mOOps thread it is pure sac, also RVA yeast does not put it in their wild yeast category. The smell coming off of it is great.

I can speak to RVA-263 Ghost Ale. It is Fantome, per RVA's website and per my experience with using that strain multiple times (Wyeast 3725-PC is Fantome as well).

I ordered two vials of RVA-263 back in November 2018 and used one of them on a Biere de Mars. I underpitched by about 50 billion cells but pure oxygenated the heck out of it. While it was fermenting, I got italian plum, lemon and gentle apricot notes coming from the airlock. The finished beer is mostly clean, again with some very gentle dried stone fruit (I detect italian plum, specifically). There's an earthy spice in the background, too. My buddy who also brews prolifically thought the spice was clove, but I thought it was more like cinnamon. Whatever that spice is, again, it is subtle. I used moderate amounts of Saphir, Pacifica and Lemondrop in the late kettle and whirlpool, so it might be tough to drill down exactly where the fruit and spice is coming from. Having used Wyeast's version of the Fantome strain, I'm pretty confident that the Italian plum and apricot notes come from the yeast (note: this strain goes really well with Azacca or any stone-fruity hop!).

All in all, this strain makes for great "clean" Belgians. I recommend it for Belgian styles like Biere de Garde or Belgian IPA where you don't want too many esters and phenols to conflict with the malt and/or hops. If you're looking for an expressive Belgian saison strain, RVA Ghost is not your champ. Stick with Wyeast 3724 or WLP565 for that.