Please look at my yeast pics and give me your views!

[UrbanPoison]

Our beers have suddenly developed a sharp astringent character and a very dry finish. This applies across the beer styles. We have made no changes to materials or process and so I suspected contamination either by bacteria or wild yeast. Microscope pics of the finished bottle-conditioned beer do not show any clear evidence of bacteria although some of the yeast morphology is a bit strange to my uneducated eyes. Can anyone help?

[dstar26t]

That middle picture with the elongated cells connected head to tail look like wild yeast. I've only seen Brett cells look like that from my limited experience.

[WoodlandBrew]

Agreed. I've only seen that structure in Brett. It's similar to hyphae you might see in mold. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphae

[UrbanPoison]

Thanks, I thought so too. But where is the Brett in the other 2 beers?
The beer with the Brett-like structures is actually quite pleasant to drink, but all the beers show the same fault.
Whatever it is, I hope the 4 days of brewery cleaning and replacing anything suspect will solve the problem.

[Inthelab]

Very small levels of infection can present themselves in a beer and create massive off flavors. Microscope evaluation will only catch absurd levels of wild yeast/bacteria. More than once Ive looked at wild fermented beer and only seen beautiful round structures, no lacto, pedio, brett, anyting out of the ordinary in extremely acidic, funky beer.

Grab some pre-made plates and plate the beer if you must know, or assume infection and hunt the source.

[UrbanPoison]

Very small levels of infection can present themselves in a beer and create massive off flavors. Microscope evaluation will only catch absurd levels of wild yeast/bacteria. More than once Ive looked at wild fermented beer and only seen beautiful round structures, no lacto, pedio, brett, anyting out of the ordinary in extremely acidic, funky beer.

Grab some pre-made plates and plate the beer if you must know, or assume infection and hunt the source.

Yes, thanks! That is sensible advice