Maere Lab

An international team of scientists, led by Prof. Kevin Verstrepen (VIB-KU-Leuven) and Prof. Steven Maere (VIB-UGent), has discovered that some of the most renowned classic Belgian beers, including Gueuze and Trappist ales, are fermented with a rare and unusual form of hybrid yeasts. These yeasts combine DNA of the traditional ale yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, with that of more stress-resistant feral yeasts such as Saccharomyces kudriavzevii.

People have been enjoying the ability of yeasts to produce beer and wine since the dawn of civilization. Researchers from VIB, KU Leuven and Ghent University found that yeasts used for beer and winemaking have been domesticated in the 16th century, around 100 years before the discovery of microbes. Together with a US research team, the Belgian teams analyzed the genomes and fermentation characteristics of more than 150 industrial yeasts used to produce different beers, wines and bread. The results show that the hundreds of beer and wine yeasts available today are the result of brewers and winemakers unconsciously selecting variants that can consume specific sugars, tolerate industrial conditions and produce desired flavors. Fascinatingly, beer yeasts show stronger signs of domestication than wine yeasts, likely because they happily lived in the brewery throughout the year and lost all contact with their feral family members. The results are published in the scientific journal Cell.