Alcian blue - a type of phthalocyanine complex - is specifically adsorbed to mannosylphosphate of yeast cell walls. This dye has been used to estimate changes in cell surface charge and it was reported that starvation results in a significant reduction in cell surface charge for the lager yeast, while causing a substantial increase in cell charge for the ale yeast (Rhymes et al., 1996). During the course of our study, we found that the dye adsorption to yeast cell, defined the Alcian Blue retention Ratio (ABR), varied according to the culture conditions of the yeast cell and ABR would be a index of the physiological states of the yeast cell. ABR was measured by a modified method of Rapoport and Beker (1985). Yeast slurry (50 mg) was suspended in 0.02 M acetate buffer (pH 4.0) containing alcian blue - tetrakis chloride (50 mg/l). The suspension was incubated for 30 minutes at 30°C, centrifuged and the supernatant was decanted. We defined ABR (%) as the ratio of absorbance (607 nm) of the supernatant to that of the original alcian blue solution. ABR of cropped lager yeast was not altered by nutrient starvation; the initial ABR was maintained during the storage condition (at 7°C, at least for 4 weeks). Small scale fermentation trials (2 L EBC-tube system) demonstrated that ABR rapidly increased to 60 - 80% within 24 hours after pitching and subsequently decreased during the fermentation stage, finally dropped to the initial level (30 - 50%). On the other hand, under the aerobic conditions (aerobic propagation in jar-fermentor), ABR increased to over 90% in 24 hours, and finally reached to 70 - 80%. These results showed that ABR increased at lag- and early-logarithmic phases of yeast growth and the culture conditions, especially aeration, affected the level of ABR, reminding us the relationship to the biosynthesis of unsaturated fatty acids and sterols in yeast. Further study showed that the level of ABR was affected by intensity of aeration, serial repichting, nutrient media, and yeast cell strains. ABR will become one of the indices of yeast physiological states, relating to the yeast propagation conditions.