from the one-that-is-missing-from-FatPhil's-collection dept.
400-year-old Ecuadoran beer resurrected from yeast:
Inside an old oak barrel, Ecuadoran bioengineer Javier Carvajal found the fungus of fortune: a 400-year-old yeast specimen that he has since managed to resurrect and use to reproduce what is believed to be Latin America's oldest beer.
That single-cell microorganism, taken from just a splinter of wood, was the key to recovering the formula for an elixir first brewed in Quito in 1566 by friar Jodoco Ricke, a Franciscan of Flemish origin who historians believe introduced wheat and barley to what is now the Ecuadoran capital.
"Not only have we recovered a biological treasure but also the 400-year-old work of silent domestication of a yeast that probably came from a chicha and that had been collected from the local environment," Carvajal told AFP.
Chicha is a fermented corn drink brewed by the Indigenous people of the Americas before Spanish colonization.
Carvajal, who already had experience recovering other yeasts, found out about the ancient Franciscan brewery in Quito while reading specialist beer magazines.
It took him a year to do so, but he finally managed to find a barrel from the old brewery in 2008.
It was stored in Quito's San Francisco Convent, an imposing three-hectare complex built between 1537 and 1680, which is now a museum.
After extracting a splinter, Carvajal used a microscope to find a tiny yeast specimen, which after a long period of cultivation he was able to resurrect.
[...] For Carvajal, resurrecting the yeast and the age-old methods used to make the ancient recipe was simply a labor of love for "the value of the intangible."
Related Stories
The Conversation has an article about five things their team learned when researching 16th century beer making. A lot has changed since then, such as standardized grain varieties, standardized yeasts, standardized hops varieties, standardized temperatures, and so on.
As part of a major study of food and drink in early modern Ireland, funded by the European Research Council, we recreated and analysed a beer last brewed at Dublin Castle in 1574. Combining craft, microbiology, brewing science, archaeology, as well as history, this was the most comprehensive interdisciplinary study of historical beer ever undertaken. Here are five things that we discovered.
[...] To learn more about brewing a beer from 1574, visit our online exhibition. A documentary film is coming soon. Details will be on our website.
tldr; Historical documentation shows that your average workers consumed immense quantities of beer per day back then.
Previously:
(2024) "AI Could Make Better Beer. Here's How."
(2024) "Ransomware Halts Production At Belgian Beer Brewery Duvel"
(2023) "Long-Unknown Origins of Lager Beer Uncovered"
(2022) "Beer Hops Compounds Could Help Protect Against Alzheimer's Disease"
(2022) "Genetically Modified Yeast Yields Intense Hop Aromas in Beer"
(2022) "400-Year-Old Ecuadoran Beer Resurrected From Yeast"
... and many more.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday August 05 2022, @09:42PM (18 children)
So it's a corn beer flavored with cinnamon, fig, clove and sugarcane. Not sure if that will be a big hit with beer drinkers today.
(Score: 1) by zatoichi on Friday August 05 2022, @10:21PM (6 children)
The yeast probably came from chicha, but since the Friar was Belgian, and introduced barley and wheat, the beer was probably a normal Belgian Ale. Belgians are known to use wild yeast, as well.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday August 05 2022, @11:41PM (2 children)
Yes. They have fermentation rooms with louvered ceiings that can be opened to expose the fermentation to whatever yeasts blow in. Some entire areas are homes of particular yeasts. So far the scientists analyzing this have found many, many different species of yeasts, and they're not done yet.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Sunday August 07 2022, @09:27AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday August 07 2022, @07:09PM
Cider production (at least the homebrew variety) works on this principle: it uses the yeasts in the skin of the unwashed apples, and the sugars from the juice. No need to do anything else to it: just bottle it up with an airlock and leave for a few months. My local variety of yeast seems to do an okay job.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 06 2022, @01:21AM (1 child)
We were on safari in Sudan, hunting wild yeasts. Our guide warned us that we would have to be fast: when the wild yeast attacks, it goes straight for your face!
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 06 2022, @03:20AM
When the wild yeast attacks
it goes straight for your crotch
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 07 2022, @05:19PM
{janrinok+zatoichi1}+{at}+{protonmail.com}
Well, hai there ari! Subtlety was never your strong suit, any more that math is your strong suit. Do you even have a strong suit?
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday August 06 2022, @03:34PM (6 children)
Depends on the country. Guinness is fairly sweet, especially compared to "American" beer (foreigners bought all of the big American beer companies, so Busch is no longer really an American beer). Most American beers were from German recipes. When I worked at Disney World I loved going around Epcot and trying different beers from around the world.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday August 07 2022, @09:41AM (5 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday August 07 2022, @06:55PM (2 children)
I'm not a beer drinker (hard cider is my preference), but I'm surprised to hear that lactose is added to beers in North America, given that it has intolerance issues. None of the ciders, beers and ales I have in (for guests) mention lactose on their labels, whereas they do note other allergens, such as barley and sulphites. I know tastes differ, but it seems that manufacturing processes differ wildly too.
I write this having been pressing apples from my garden and pouring the juice into airlocked containers to make this year's cider. It'll sit there until the yeast runs out of sugar, then I'll get around to bottling it. That's my taste in alcohol (and complication too).
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 08 2022, @10:46AM (1 child)
It's added not just for sweetness (lactose isn't that sweet, so it's not a great adjunct for that goal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetness#Examples_of_sweet_substances ), but for a fuller smoother body. Personally, I think it makes beer slimy - in particular when used in the quantities that will permit you to notice its sweetness. And if anything less friendly than saccharomyces cerevisiae is alive in your mix, holy jeebus will the lactose produce some horrible off flavours ("dirty dish rag" is a very common descriptor of one of the things you can end up with).
Its popularity has crept up in the last decade or so, it used to be a secret ingredient, but everyone knows about it now, and feel the neet to show off that they know about it - some even seem to feel the need to completely overdo the lactose use in comically bad ways. You might encounter some making "milkshake IPAs", for example. Expect vanilla and fruit too, because apparently beer should be yoghurt.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday August 08 2022, @12:42PM
Well aside from my general aversion to beers (as mentioned in another post), a milkshake-style beer would be well off my tasting list. Thanks for the explanation.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday August 08 2022, @05:41PM (1 child)
You must be referring to true American beer. A little googling says it's mainly for stouts.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 09 2022, @04:13AM
Like cancer, it's spread.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday August 07 2022, @09:16AM (3 children)
Last night, I had one which was flavoured with banana and chocolate, for example, and another that tasted of pissy nutsacks. But the latter was because they had a brett infection, not by design.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kazzie on Sunday August 07 2022, @07:06PM (2 children)
The same thing is common in UK (hard) ciders too. There seems to be three main classes of cider here:
1. The well-known, mass-produced ciders with lots of sugar and bubbles, but no taste* (Strongbow, Magners, etc)
2. Ciders made with other sundry fruits or other ingredients, so it tastes of something else instead (Rekordelig, Old Mout)
3. The smaller cider makers that know what they're doing, and make some proper stuff (Weston's, Thatchers, Rosie's)
I stick exclusively to the third category.
*There used to be a subset of this, which was cider fermented cheaply to higher strengths (White Lightning) but that's largely gone the way of the dodo., because cider was taxed less than beer
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 08 2022, @10:53AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 08 2022, @11:08AM
I don't know if you've seen Louis Theroux /Drinking to Oblivion/, it's as jolly as it sounds (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5561592/) The next time we went to the UK after seeing that, we made sure to hunt out Gaymer's K cider, which featured in the segment about an unfortunate French lass called Aurelie. It went down a treat at the Tallinn Crap Beer Festival - proper crap - but as we drank it my g/f & I dedicated the moment to Aurelie. https://www.ratebeer.com/beer/gaymers-k-cider-uk-version/107810/
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 06 2022, @05:11AM
I bet it's flat.