What’s On Tap: Lance Shaner from Omega Yeast Labs!

Omega Yeast Labs’ standard is to provide breweries with pitchable quantities of fresh, made-to-order pure yeast for a reasonable price.

Founder and CEO Lance Shaner received a Ph.D. in microbiology and molecular genetics from the University of Texas – Houston. Lance has 9 years of laboratory experience, including 5 years of original research on the stress response of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (a.k.a. brewer’s yeast). Lance has been an avid homebrewer for 14 years and continues actively homebrewing today.

Bert’s Better Beers’ Draft Pick(s) of the Week:

 1. Brouwerij Alvinee – Omega

Listen for our review!

Kettle to Keg’s In the Kettle: Specialty Grains

New England’s Tap House Grill’s Ale Communications:

1. New Yeasts Could Lead To More Diverse Lagers

This article is about sex and beer. Don’t say IFLScience never gives you anything.

Okay, well it’s not the kind of sex you’re used to, well I hope not anyway. We’re talking about yeast sex. Now that may leave you somewhat deflated, but this yeast hanky panky could bring us new types of beer that take us beyond the homogeneous tastes of lager that currently line supermarket shelves. The findings are published in the September 25 edition of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Unlike lager, ales vary significantly not only in taste but aroma and appearance, too. The narrow range of flavor has been attributed to a lack of genetic diversity in the yeasts used during fermentation, all of which are slight variations of the species S. pastorianus. Interestingly, genetic studies have found that all these strains are the result of just two crosses between parental species.

These independent hybridization events, involving the species Saccharomyces cerevisiae and S. eubayanus, gave rise to two distinct yeast genotypes, Saaz and Frohberg. It is from these that all commercially available strains are derived.

Scientists therefore wondered whether creating a greater breadth of yeast strains could be key to spicing up the range of aromas available in lagers. To achieve this, they selected six strains of S. cerevisiae and two of S. eubayanus and experimentally manipulated their growth environment in order to try and encourage interspecies breeding. READ MORE

2. Nudging a Huge Beer Deal Down a Long Road

all it the hostile “nudge.”

Anheuser-Busch InBev’s $104 billion offer to acquire SABMiller is all about trying to nudge SABMiller into accepting the deal without Anheuser-Busch InBev having to go into full-fledged hostile bid mode.

The news release on Wednesday merely stated that Anheuser-Busch InBev was disclosing an offer that it had made to SABMiller, but it did not take the next step of formally starting an exchange offer to SABMiller shareholders, which is the final step that bidders take when they make a hostile bid.

This is why if you read this now public offer, known as a teddy bear-hug letter, it is littered with phrases like “we have the highest respect for SABMiller” and that this offer is “an extremely compelling opportunity” for SABMiller shareholders.

The reason is twofold. First, it is always nice to avoid a full-fledged hostile takeover, and this language is often included in the first communications of a bidder. The tone is “let’s all try to be friends” (that’s the teddy bear), with the threat of a hostile bid looming (the bear). READ MORE

3.Voices: As beer giants merge, microbrews still get the buzz

Dress it up any way you want with all the hybrid corporate titles, global intrigue and a $104 billion sale price. Bud finally had its way with Miller this week.

While the serious press, like this newspaper, soberly deliberates over the possible antitrust and international economic ramifications of a union of Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller, let me cut to the quick.

I’m happy it happened. In my perfect world, every cloyingly sweet drop of mass-produced beer would be brewed by a single company so that we can all stop pretending. This new behemoth (can someone please tell me how all those unpunctuated capital letters in the corporate title will be arranged?) will control more than 350 brands, nearly all of them fronting the same pallid lager.

This airy opinion isn’t shared by many people for whom Anheuser-Busch stands for all that is reprehensible in the brewing industry. And to a certain extent they have a point. When I first read that a merger might happen, I thought back to another time when AB was making news. READ MORE

4. Sam Adams’ New Double IPA Is Making Alcohol Distributors Nervous

I had an interview with Jim Koch, co-founder and chairman of Boston Beer Company ($SAM), on Friday. We were supposed to be talking about Brewing the American Dream, the support program for small-business entrepreneurs that Sam Adams runs. But we spent most of the half-hour interview talking about beer.

Specifically, we talked about Rebel Raw, an unfiltered double IPA that’s gotten attention on a beer forum or two since the Sam Adams brewery in Jamaica Plain started brewing test batches of the stuff. Koch had just come from a tasting and he was a little fired up–not about the content of the beer, but about Sam’s “disruptive” plans for its distribution. READ MORE

Hop Head United’s Cork Board:

1. Tap Handle Show Takeover December 7th!

Jukebox: I’d Like to Report a Murder  by Otto Kinzel IV

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