Selecting and generating superior yeasts for the brewing industry

Fermented foods and beverages have been consumed by umans for over 8000 years. These fermentations were at first spontaneous process, without any control or knowledge of the icrobial driving force. This led to irregular and often inferior end roducts. It was not until the late 19th century that it was proposed o use a well-defined microbial starter culture for wine production, onsisting of one pure yeast strain. Although this greatly increased he reproducibility of the fermentations, the main difficulty was o select a strain with all beneficial characteristics necessary for n efficient and high-quality fermentation. Until recently, the ppropriate tools and knowledge where lacking to make a wellonsidered and scientifically-founded choice about which strain to ick. This explains why, even today, most beer yeasts are used based n historical rather than scientific reasons. However, the current nowledge and technologies now allow selection of superior yeasts trains that are optimally suited to perform their industrial tasks. In ur research team, for example, we are using state-of-the-art techologies to select and generate yeast strains with improved ethanol olerance, fermentation speed, attenuation and flavour production.