The Story of Big aLICe Astoria Yeast
Around here, we like beers that carry a sense of place—and sometimes that place starts in a humble backyard in Astoria, Queens.
A few years back, our brewers set out to capture a yeast strain that truly felt like home. They turned to a pesticide-free fig tree growing in a neighborhood yard, tucked away from the street. It wasn’t chosen just for convenience—it represented a bigger story. In Astoria, many backyard fruit trees are descended from cuttings brought over by immigrants from Greece, Italy, Croatia, and other parts of the world. Families carried fig, persimmon, cherry trees, and grapevines with them when they arrived in New York, wrapping them in linoleum and burlap each winter so they could survive the cold. Today, those trees still bear fruit, quietly thriving behind fences across the neighborhood.
We harvested figs from one of those trees and dropped them into fresh wort to see if we could coax a native yeast into being. Over the course of a year, we carefully nurtured that fermentation, gradually propping up a viable strain that not only worked—but showed real promise.
When the time was right, we sent it to our partners at Omega Yeast Labs for identification. The results surprised us: the strain wasn’t a funky Brett culture or something loaded with bacteria. It turned out to be Saccharomyces boulardii, a yeast most commonly found in probiotics—and famously, the same family of yeast used in Saison Dupont, the classic Belgian farmhouse ale.
We immediately banked it with Omega as Big aLICe Astoria Yeast, now used exclusively by our brewery. Over time, it has become the backbone of our farmhouse program, replacing the saison yeast we previously used and giving our beers a deeper, more personal identity.
So when you drink a Big aLICe beer brewed with Astoria Yeast, you’re tasting more than fermentation character—you’re tasting a living piece of Queens, shaped by immigrant roots and nurtured in our corner of the city.
Currently brewing with Astoria Yeast
Ravenswood – Belgian Strong Ale with cinnamon and nutmeg
Sweet Potato Farmhouse – Rustic farmhouse ale brewed with NY-grown sweet potatoes