Origins of yeast used to make lager traced to Tibetan forest, scientists say
Scientists claim to have discovered the "Eve" of lager yeast in the mountain forests of Tibet, a finding that could be used to give Chinese beer a flavour different from its European rivals.
Scientists claim to have discovered the "Eve" of lager yeast in the mountain forests of Tibet, a finding that could be used to give Chinese beer a flavour different from its European rivals.
Microbiologists have for decades hunted for the ancestor to Saccharomyces bayanus, a yeast species widely thought to be one of two parents of S. pastorianu, used for hundreds of years to make lager. The yeast was active in low temperatures, so most searches were conducted in cold, mountainous areas.
In 2011, an international team found a candidate in Patagonia in Argentina, but the suggestion it was the original ancestor was met with arguments over whether the yeast had travelled from Europe over the Atlantic Ocean.
Tibet may be harsh to human beings ... but to beer yeasts it can be heaven
But a team from the State Key Laboratory of Mycology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) believes it has finally found the "Eve" of S. bayanus.
According to Han Peijie, a researcher with the laboratory, genetic studies on wild yeasts his team collected in the deep forest of Tibet's Nyingchi prefecture strongly suggested Tibet was the birthplace.
"Tibet may be harsh to human beings - it is very cold with thin air. But to beer yeasts it can be heaven. We found them everywhere, from the bark of trees to the soil underneath," he said.
"To us this is an utterly surprising discovery. We have collected samples in more than a dozen provinces in China, but the richness of micro-organisms in Tibet has exceeded our wildest expectations."