Looking at yesterday's yeasts to brew tomorrow's beer with Kevin Verstrepen

For more topics go to scienceandcocktails.org Why are there so many different yeasts for beer brewing, bread baking and wine production? Where do these yeasts come from? Are we using the best yeasts available in nature? Can we make even better yeasts by breeding or genetic engineering? What kind of beers and wines will the yeasts of the future bring? In this fantastic event, Kevin Verstrepen, one of the biggest master brewers (from the scientific point of view) from the land of beer (Belgium) will be speaking about the history of beer and the brewer’s yeast selection over the years. The common brewer's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is used in a broad range of industrial applications, from the production of beer, wine and bread to biofuels and pharmaceuticals. Interestingly, there are hundreds of different industrial yeast strains, but their origins and specific characteristics are largely unknown. Verstrepen and his lab combined a series of hardcore science techniques with genome sequencing to track the genealogy and evolution of today’s industrial yeasts. Using this knowledge allowed them to set up large-scale breeding programs to generate superior variants that increase production efficiency and expand the range of yeast-derived products and aroma’s, allowing more efficient beer fermentation, production of superior beers and the creation of novel products.