Lager yeast originates from Patagonia - WTF?

[akr71]

Scientists find lager beer's missing link — in Patagonia

How did lager beer come to be? After pondering the question for decades, scientists have found that an elusive species of yeast isolated in the forests of Argentina was key to the invention of the crisp-tasting German beer 600 years ago.

It took a five-year search around the world before a scientific team discovered, identified and named the organism, a species of wild yeast called Saccharomyces eubayanus that lives on beech trees.

"We knew it had to be out there somewhere," said Chris Todd Hittinger, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a coauthor of the report published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.

Their best bet is that centuries ago, S. eubayanus somehow found its way to Europe and hybridized with the domestic yeast used to brew ale, creating an organism that can ferment at the lower temperatures used to make lager.

Geneticists have known since the 1980s that the yeast brewers use to make lager, S. pastorianus, was a hybrid of two yeast species: S. cerevisiae — used to make ales, wine and bread — and some other, unidentified organism.

Searching through collections of wild yeasts from Europe, researchers — including Hittinger and his collaborators — tried to identify lager's missing link but again and again were stumped. "There were a few candidates, but none fit particularly well," Hittinger said.

So he and his colleagues began "sampling more systematically," collecting soil and bark, sap and abnormal growths called galls from trees on five continents.

Team member Diego Libkind of the Institute for Biodiversity and Environment Research in Bariloche, Argentina, found S. eubayanus in galls on southern beech trees in Patagonia. The galls were particularly rich in sugar, which yeast like to colonize and consume.

Patagonian natives used to make a fermented beverage from the galls — a definite clue that the scientists were on the right track, Hittinger said.

When the team brought the yeast to a lab at the University of Colorado and analyzed its genome, they discovered that it was 99.5% identical to the non-ale portion of the S. pastorianus genome, suggesting it was indeed lager yeast's long-lost ancestor.

"The DNA evidence is strong," said Gavin Sherlock, a geneticist at Stanford University who has studied lager yeast but was not involved in this study.

But Sherlock wondered how S. eubayanus could have traveled the nearly 8,000 miles from Argentina to Germany.

"We all know that in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue," he said. "Lager was invented in the 1400s. It's not really clear how that progenitor would have gotten from South America to Europe."

Scientists may yet find colonies of the yeast in Europe, he said. Another possibility is that lager yeast originated a bit later than previously thought, added Barbara Dunn, a senior research scientist who works in Sherlock's lab.

"It certainly could have existed somewhere else," Hittinger acknowledged. "Just because somebody hasn't found it doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

The beech forests where the team found S. eubayanus are cool, with an average year-round temperature of 43 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit, Hittinger said.

Genes that permit the yeast to thrive in such a chilly environment probably provided S. pastorianus' ability to ferment at relatively low temperatures — conditions not too terribly different from those prevalent in the Bavarian cellars where monks created the golden brew in the 15th century, Hittinger said.

The researchers compared the DNA of the wild Patagonian yeast with that of lager yeast used in breweries to see what changes had evolved over the years. They found changes in genes that regulate sugar and sulfite metabolism, processes that contribute to the fermentation and preservation of beer.

Scientists could exploit such knowledge to improve biofuels, Hittinger said.

And, of course, tinkering with yeast genes might make wine or beer taste better too, said Hittinger, who is "a lager man" himself. Coauthor Mark Johnston, a molecular biologist at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, prefers ales.

"Even though we both stand by our original preferences, we both have a new appreciation for where lager came from and the complexity of the processes that made it what it is today," Hittinger said.

[derek]

Clearly they're still thinking inside the box.

Egyptians had beer.
Thor Heyerdahl said the Egyptians sailed to South America.
Argentina has a precursor to the lager yeast.
Columbus didn't reach the Americas until after lager yeast was discovered in Europe.

Ergo:
The precursor yeast was introduced to both Europe and Argentina by the Egyptians.
QED.

It didn't even take me a whole beer to work that out...

[NASH]

Here's some funny comments about this from Steve Parkes facebook page, he is the owner/president of the American Brewers Guild.....



Steve Parkes
A scientific paper came our recently that announced the discovery of a yeast cell in Patagonia that closely resembles the genetic makeup of lager yeast. Cue frenzy of rampant internet speculation and misinformation. Remain skeptical my friends
4 hours ago ·


John Wyzkiewicz I'm goin with aliens...aliens brought the yeast from patagonia...or sasquatch
4 hours ago · LikeUnlike · 1 person


Rick Hadsall It's just as likely that this is a fairly common mutation/change and it just so happened to be there too. It's also just as likely that the yeast was brought there by lager brewers. Ridiculous.
4 hours ago · LikeUnlike


Sarah Butler Dorsey I'm reaching back into my OCB days...but doesn't yeast spread very easily and very rapidly in the right conditions??? It could have been brought by lots of people and spread itself down to Patagonia, right? Or maybe wrong
4 hours ago · LikeUnlike


Rick Hadsall Yeah. It's an even worse argument than the argument that Syrah was originated in the Persian area called Shiraz (the Aussies even call their Syrah Shiraz because of it) until they found out oops, no it wasn't, it was French all along.
3 hours ago · LikeUnlike


Avril K. Belisle Davis Maybe Columbus *brought* the yeast to Patagonia
3 hours ago · LikeUnlike


Rick Hadsall Or maybe the yeast just bought a tourist ticket and decided to stay. We'll never know.
3 hours ago · LikeUnlike


Matthew Wood I read the LATimes article on it and it didn't seem that controversial. This research is not based on folklore but on DNA. How is it far-fetched to think a yeast cell traveled over an ocean?
3 hours ago · LikeUnlike


Rick Hadsall It's not controversial at all. But the knee-jerk that it originated in Patagonia and Lager is Chilean/Argentinian is a bit quick. Considering that lager beer was happening before those areas were settled by Europeans I'd argue Occam's Razor suggests that it came with the settlers. There was fermentation by the Asian settlers of course. Lager could have been an independent discovery. But the point is that there's a serious jump to singular conclusion when several things could be likely.
3 hours ago · LikeUnlike


Matthew Wood true, it could have traveled the other way round (East). But note that the researchers are suggesting an ancestor of Pastorianus might have traveled, not Pastorianus itself.
3 hours ago · LikeUnlike


Steve Parkes The point being that scientists found a yeast in Patagonia that looks like lager yeast. They haven't found one yet in Bavaria. Doesn't mean it wasn't there 600 yrs ago, just that they haven't found one since they've been looking.
3 hours ago · LikeUnlike


Rick Hadsall Right - it's silly to jump to conclusions based upon one piece of evidence.
3 hours ago · LikeUnlike


Garrett Oliver I will not have you making fun of our Darth Pastorianus Extreme Chilean Pils....
about an hour ago · LikeUnlike · 3 peopleLoading...


Rick Hadsall Otherwise known as Patagonian Tooth-Pils
about an hour ago · LikeUnlike


Steve Parkes I'll only do it behind your back
about an hour ago · LikeUnlike


Rick Hadsall I think the yeast is responsible for the earthquake just now
about an hour ago · LikeUnlike


Garrett Oliver Darth Pastorianus Extreme Chilean 5.9 Earthquake Pils is totally delicious, and has already gotten a score of 100 on RateBeer even though it was only released 42 minutes ago. So there. Let's see your beer rock the whole east coast....
37 minutes ago · LikeUnlike


Rick Hadsall Comments on BeerAdvocate say it sucks and it isn't hoppy enough and doesn't have enough fruity aroma and banana flavor so they are rating it a D
34 minutes ago · LikeUnlike


Garrett Oliver But it's got 260 IBUs and it has an ABV of 86.5% and it's stuffed into a rare Patagonian cormorant - how could they not love it? Amateurs!
28 minutes ago · LikeUnlike · 1 person

[derek]

Here's some funny comments about this from Steve Parkes facebook page, he is the owner/president of the American Brewers Guild.....

OK, they're funny - but I'm still pretty sure I'm right

[akr71]

Here's some funny comments about this from Steve Parkes facebook page, he is the owner/president of the American Brewers Guild.....

OK, they're funny - but I'm still pretty sure I'm right

I believe you, but would you want to drink a lager fermented at Saharan temperatures (even stored at the bottom of a tomb)?

[derek]

I believe you, but would you want to drink a lager fermented at Saharan temperatures (even stored at the bottom of a tomb)?

Er... Right! The Romans knew how to make ice in the desert - they must have got that trick from the Egyptians...