New yeasts could boost lager brewing

Experts at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, who salvaged beer from an 1840s shipwreck off the coast of the Åland Islands last year, hoped their development would revolutionise the sector's processes.

Recent studies ​

Lager has traditionally been produced using a reliable and cold-hardy Saccharomyces pastorianus yeast. However, recent studies showed that particular yeast was comprised of two species Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces eubayanus.

“These findings have opened up possibilities for researchers to create new, customised lager yeasts through selective mating of strains,” the researchers said.​

New flavours ​

“This enables the production of new flavours of lager or the acceleration of the fermentation phase in lager production to take place.”​

Following the research, VTT scientists developed hybrid yeasts with different properties.