Did you know that many yeasts used in #brewing #beer, are hybrids and infertile? They don't seem able to mate and sexually reproduce. For brewers this means that yeast genetic diversity in a brew is relatively stable 1/7.

From a process improvement perspective, sterility means that biologists cannot resort to the breeding approaches they commonly use for other organisms 2/7.

To make crosses possible and allow use of yeast genetics, a research team led by Prof Daniela Delneri ( @ddelneri) sought to overcome the infertility problem and allow breeders to combine valuable traits in new brew strains 3/7.

The authors broke down the infertility barrier and built on their breakthrough by asking whether gene recombination and quantitative genetics can be used to improve yeast performance. By doing so, the authors indeed identified many new loci (Quantitative Trait Loci or QTLs) 4/7.

Why is this important?

1. Geneticists now can cross hybrid strains and use genetics to identify and combine gene versions (alleles) to optimize strains for any measurable trait..

2. The fact that new QTLs were identified shows that the approach is working 5/7.

This work also convincingly demonstrates that classical genetic methods (albeit helped by some clever tricks) can unlock the enormous potential that gene recombination holds in our quest to produce ever-improved beer and brewing processes 6/7.

The Beerologist aims to bring you the latest science, associated with brewing beer. To learn more, visit: https://beercollection.substack.com/p/brewing-beer-in-the-age-of-infertility

Sign up for free or support our work by becoming a paying subscriber ($5 per month). Bargain 7/7.