Questions on harvesting yeast

Hi,

I recently bought a bottle of Chimay Tripel in the hopes of harvesting yeast to use in brewing future Belgian ales. After making my starter, I kept waiting for some activity until I remembered that some strains of Belgian yeast prefer higher temperatures (my house right now has dipped to 65 F).

I decided to solve the problem using a small bath with an aquarium heater. A day later I realized that the temperature setting on the heater was misaligned, raising the temperature well beyond what I wanted. Now that everything has been corrected, the yeast are doing their thing. But the aroma from the fermented beer is extremely estery (beyond what is normal for the style).

So I am wondering: other than going dormant or dying, can yeast be harmed by temperature flux or another condition that will result in poor future propagation/performance? Is it only the starter beer that has been ruined, or should I be worried about future generations of these little guys and the beer that they will produce?

Harvesting yeast from bottle is always a challange, especially from strong beer, the yeast cand be severely stressed and mutaded.
The temperature of a starter is not an issue, it can be as hight as 80-85F without making serius damage to the yeast.

If you are worried about yeast stress you can always decant and add fresh wort to let it ferment for another cycle. Unless it was significantly over 80*F I wouldn't worry. Starters are always somewhat estery in my experience. A nice thick white cake on the bottom is what you are looking for.

If culturing doesn't turn out, the Chimay yeast is WLP500, if you didn't know.