Belgian yeasts and plastic

I've searched the forums and haven't found anything directly related to this question... I was just on Russian River Brewing Co.'s website and noticed this blurb about how they got started brewing Belgian style ales:

Why do we make Belgian style Ales?

Inspired by the great beers of Belgium , our brewer and owner Vinnie Cilurzo has created a line up of Belgian style beers. It all started back in 1999 when Cilurzo took a trip to Europe, on a day trip to Belgium he fell in love with ales of Belgium. One week later he finally left the tiny little country.

In 1994 while brewing at Blind Pig Brewing Company in Temecula , CA , a local home brewer, Darrel Flood would bring Cilurzo samples of his homebrewed Belgian style ales for Cilurzo to sample. Cilurzo always wanted to brew Belgian style ale at Blind Pig; however, due to the fact that all of his fermenters were plastic, he did not want to take a chance of having the Belgian yeast stay permanently impregnated in the plastic fermenters. So, he waited.

Finally, in 1997 Cilurzo & his wife Natalie moved to Northern California where he was hired by Korbel Champagne cellars to brew at their new brewery Russian River Brewing Company. On the weekends he would homebrew Belgian style ales. Eventually, he created his first Belgian style ale called California Abbey Ale. Than came Damnation and several other "tion" Belgian style ales.

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I bolded the part that piqued my interest. Is he inferring that the Belgian yeasts leave a flavor or something like that behind after fermentation? Curious what you think about this.

I'm not sure what he meant.
For sure stainless and glass are easier to clean because they are non porous and you can use harsher chemicals.
But Belgian yeasts are varieties of Saccharomyces, just like every other beer yeast.
Could he be referring to Brettanomyces, which is somewhat harder to kill than Saccharomyces?

I use ale pails and I haven't noticed any carryover between different styles of yeast.

Methinks a lot of things have changed in general knowledge about yeast in 13 years. That is unless he was talking about brett, which a lot of large breweries are scared that it will get into all of their lines/fermenters.

Ah that's probably it... Brett.

Edcculus is on the money. There is a fear in US breweries that rely on brewing tons of styles from all over the world using the same gear that they'll permanently infect their equipment. Brett is the perfect example, but the concept applies to any strain of yeast. Plastic will develop tiny scratches that will be a camping ground for anything that lives. This isn't as big of a risk for stainless since it doesn't scratch as easily as plastic does, but it still can happen with stainless.

If you are careful with your gear, and don't use something like brett, you'll be fine. Plus. would you even notice if you had a little bit of esters in your beer you intended to be a clean tasting APA? You might even prefer it. Where with a professional brewery in the US we tend to focus on repeatable methods and tools that will always produce the identical product.

Another thought is food grade pails are really cheap. You can always have one for the Belgians, and another for the cleaner american and british styles.

Scott