Endangered Beers and Yeast Archives

Yes, I am writing about beer again.  I find it interesting, okay!  Beer is science, history, and booze rolled into one.  What's not to like?

Steps in beer brewing:
1.  Boil your grains and hops.
2.  Cool the resulting hot liquid (wort) and add yeast at a strain-specific temperature.
3.  Ferment! Let those little yeasties do their job!
4.  Bottle and age.
5.  Drink that beer!

The most important step in the process is the addition of the yeast.  Yeast is what makes the beer bubbly and alcoholic.  Specific yeasts impart different flavors on the beer and also determines what kind of beer is being brewed.  There is a yeast archive in England.  Yes, a yeast archive.  It is called the National Collection of Yeast Cultures and it houses more than 4,000 strains of yeast.  Of the 4,000, 800 are brewer's yeasts. This laboratory archive has been collecting and preserving yeasts for more than 65 years.  They use the latest technology to duplicate and freeze yeast strains.  The other types of yeast stored here used for baking, scientific research, medicine, and industry.

The article I read about this marvelous archive illustrates an old brewery in England's lake district that makes a specific type of old ale.  The brewery was destroyed by ten feet of water.  The yeast, the thing that made their ales special, had drowned.  But luckily, they had taken a strain of their yeast to the NCYC and had it stored in case of an emergency.  The archive even duplicates the yeast samples they are given so they have a backup of the brewer's backup.  A lot of these yeast samples are open to the public for purchase so brewers and scientists have access to the strains of yeast housed there.

This system is kind of an offshoot of Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.  This seed vault stores and preserves seeds from every plant on Earth.  This acts as insurance for humankind in case crops are destroyed by you-name-it.  The yeast samples have been used by brewers to recreate beers that haven't been produced since the 1940s and even ancient beer brewed by the Incas.  Yeast can act as an "emissary from the past" and let today's beer drinkers experience history in a way they never have before.  The fact that we are able to drink history amazes me.

So, everybody go out and have a pint of something historic!

(http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/theres-a-safety-deposit-box-for-the-yeast-that-makes-your-beer/371876/)