Posts Tagged ‘genetics’

Wild Patagonian Lager Yeast Ancestor Found!

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

courtesy Diego Libkind, Institute for Biodiversity and Environment Research, Bariloche, Argentina

In the gall sacks of Argentinian beech trees scientists have found a strain of wild yeast believed to have provided the “missing half” of the lager yeast genome. The international group of geneticists has been on a mission to identify the wild yeast that centuries ago combined with common ale yeast to form the clean-tasting cold-fermenting superhefe we know as Saccharomyces bayanus. To celebrate I am drinking a Magic Hat Hex Ourtoberfest, their märzen offering.

I have two thoughts on this discovery. First, of course the press release would come from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Second, I hope Budweiser puts this in a commercial and somehow relates it to their beechwood aging process.