Wired Magazine: prehistoric yeast in beer

[z987k]

Found this article on wired.

Fossil Fuels Brewery in the bay area will be fermenting some or one, I'm not sure, with a yeast brought back to life from amber by Raul Cano 14 years ago (a la Jurassic Park).

link: Amber Ale: Brewing Beer from 45-Million-Year-Old Yeast

At the end of the article he says: "His only worry is that the unfiltered nature of this beer means that some of his yeast will invariably settle to the bottom of the glass or bottle, and an unscrupulous brewer could collect that and use it in another beer."

Damn right I will. Are you kidding me, how could I not?

 

[davesrose]

humm....makes for an interesting science delima: re-introduce really ancient strains of yeast which would mutate differently then current strains of yeast. That's a heck of a lot more interesting then how this is as a brewing yeast. This brewer doesn't have to worry with me trying to culture this strain from a bottle: I'll stick to my clean tasting, thousands of years worth of selectively bred beer yeasts thank you

 

[Edcculus]

I think this came up a while ago. IMO, its more of a marketing gimmick than anything else.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

That is pretty cool imo. You'd think if fear of others harvesting yeast was such a concern they'd do whatever was needed to prevent it.

 

[SmugMug]

So who's the brave soul to use this yeast first?

 

[Homercidal]

Sht I'll do it. Jurassic Ale, here I come (or lager, as the case may be). What's the worst that can happen? Yeast runs wild killing every living creature on the planet?

 

[SmugMug]

Sht I'll do it. Jurassic Ale, here I come (or lager, as the case may be). What's the worst that can happen? Yeast runs wild killing every living creature on the planet?

Can you let this thing ferment in the mountains of Afghanistan by chance? Just in case.

 

[z987k]

I think this came up a while ago. IMO, its more of a marketing gimmick than anything else.

Well the fact that it tolerates both ale and lager temps very well tells me at least in the use, it's not a gimmick. You may or may not pick up any flavors from the beer, but as we know yeast are a rather big thing in making beer, so I would bet there is something to it. If nothing else, another strain that produces a combination of flavors not available by other strains.

 

[MikeG]

There's probably some encoding left by the aliens who populated life here so that we turn into them through these yeasts. I'd rather turn sooner than later, I've seen enough movies (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) where being the last one running sucks.

 

[Sigafoos]

Why hasn't Sam Caglione capitalized on this yet? He seems into ancient stuff.

 

[944play]

So who's the brave soul to use this yeast first?

AFAIK, Stumptown Brewery. The experimental beer is ok, but unpleasantly phenolic to my palate. Their house pale ale, apparently from the same wort, is flawless and lovely.

 

[chefmike]

I just read the article... I think it is fascinating.

gimmick or no... I would try the beer.

Instead of being scared that someone will steal it, they should capitolize on the hype and get it to white labs or Wyeast as a speciality. The fellow is a scientist who stands to gain a bit off his research. The time to control is past... go open source on the thing.

I would try to get a few breweries in different regions to do a brew with it, then get someone with enough market push to go into bottles (DogFish seems a logical choice) and then get it to a yeast company. You can't expect to keep it under wraps.