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posted by janrinok on Thursday October 24 2019, @04:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the I'll-drink-to-that! dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

The secret of classic Belgian beers? Medieval super yeasts!

An international team of scientists, led by Prof. Kevin Verstrepen (VIB-KU-Leuven) and Prof. Steven Maere (VIB-UGent), has discovered that some of the most renowned classic Belgian beers, including Gueuze and Trappist ales, are fermented with a rare and unusual form of hybrid yeasts. These yeasts combine DNA of the traditional ale yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, with that of more stress-resistant feral yeasts such as Saccharomyces kudriavzevii.

"These yeasts are hybrids between two completely different species" says Dr. Jan Steensels (VIB -- KU Leuven Center for Microbiology), who coordinated the lab work of this study. "Think of lions and tigers making a super-baby."

Such interspecific hybridizations are rare and seem to be favored by the domestication process. In this case, the new hybrid yeasts combined important characteristics of both parental species, with the fermentation capacity of normal beer yeasts and the stress tolerance and capacity to form special aromas of more feral ancient yeasts like S. kudriavzevii that haphazardly made their way into the brewery.

The team, from the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Microbiology and the University of Munich, supported by industrial partners, has spent five years characterizing the different yeasts used in today's production of beer, wine, bread and biofuels. The genetic analysis of these yeasts was quite a piece of work, because none of the existing pipelines for DNA sequencing can deal with such mixed origins.

For this the team could, surprisingly, count on the plant expertise of professor Steven Maere, a bioinformatics expert from the VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology. Maere explains: "Plants have some of the most complex genomes of all living organisms. It is fascinating that complex interspecific hybrids with doubled genomes feature prominently both among domesticated yeasts and domesticated plants."

"It was a bit of a surprise for us" says Dr. Brigida Gallone (VIB-KU Leuven Center for Microbiology), the lead author on the paper that appeared today in Nature Ecology and Evolution. "In 2016, we reported that most industrial yeasts belong to, or arose from the species Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the traditional baker's and brewer's yeast. We found that these industrial yeasts are quite different from their wild progenitors, with different subfamilies having adapted to beer, wine and bakery environments. We also noticed that some of the yeasts that were isolated from ancient Belgian beer styles, like Gueuze and Trappist beers, are even more unusual and contained DNA of two different yeast species."

"It really seems that these unique natural yeasts allowed the development of some of the most renowned beers that Belgium is so famous for," says Dr. Philippe Malcorps, Senior Scientist at the Global Innovation and Technology Center of AB InBev, the world's largest brewer. The team of Malcorps helped with the isolation of yeasts from some of their spontaneous fermentation beer cellars. Those natural super-yeasts are living witnesses of brewing from pre-industrial ages, adapted to harsh conditions of fermentation of the strong Trappist beers, or survival in the long lagering typical for Gueuze beers.

Brigida Gallone, et. al. Interspecific hybridization facilitates niche adaptation in beer yeast. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41559-019-0997-9


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @04:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @04:49PM (#911264)

    So let me get this straight: a group of males who've taken a vow of celibacy that make beer with a secret recipe. Umm yeah thanks, I think I'll drink semen instead.