Brett. in Mead? Belgian Ale yeast in Wine?

Someone who recently came back from California mentioned having a wine over there that was fermented with a Belgian ale yeast and that it was like nothing he had ever had before. Didn't say if it was good or bad, just.. different. Anyways, got me thinkin, and maybe some brettomyces or lactobacillicus in a mead? Maybe wine yeast could impart something to my beers (esp. high gravity ones)?

Anyways, just wanted to see if anyone else had played with mead/wine/beer yeast/funk combinations and how it turned out.

papazian once talked about a sack mead which was quite old and had hints of bret...if i remeber correctly he called it pleasant. I dont know that i would use lacto though...

I have a cider going now with lacto/pedio/brett, probably won't really know the results for another year though... I have heard about people using wine yeast for beers several times, but the results never sound good enough to make a try at it.

One problem with adding any bacteria to anything beside beer is that you don't have the hops to keep them in control, you could get a lot of sourness very quickly. Brett is another story, it is a relatively common occurance in "traditional" wine making.

so how did it turn out oldsock?

jmich24 said:

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2011/06/sour-cider-tasting.html

Click to expand...

It has continued to get better in the 15 months since that tasting, really good if you are into the Basque cider thing.

I could see D-47 fermented cool with a dark barley wine and sur-lie aged being really good, but only after 1-2 years of aging. This could be done in the bottle and maybe agitated once every week/month depending on time constraints. Kinda too long-term to wanna try though. As for mead I've been seeing some folks recently using high-attenuating lager yeast for mead, fermented and stored at lager temperatures, though the results haven't come through yet. I could maybe see a mead or hydromel with belgian yeast but the big thing about traditional mead is the retention of the honey character. Maybe a "barkshack ginger mead" variation with fruit made with belgian yeast or sour-fermented like a lambic? A sour-fermented Graf? You could get pretty crazy with stuff if you have the time/resources (wishing I had space/money for solera barrels to make my own sherry )