D. DRISCOLL (1); (1) Avery Brewing Company, Boulder, CO, U.S.A.

Yeast
Thursday, June 5 - 8:00 a.m.-9:45 a.m.
Level 4, Red Lacquer Ballroom

With the improved quality and falling costs of next generation sequencing, new applications are being explored in fields such as agriculture, medicine, and brewing science. The organism responsible for the conversion of brewer’s wort into beer just so happens to be the widely studied Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Avery Brewing Company is leveraging next generation sequencing approaches to improve quality control. Yeast strains are selected to ferment a given beer based on many attributes, not the least of which are flavor and aroma profiles. Often, within a brewery, the brewer will use multiple yeast strains for the various beers they produce. Therefore, it becomes critically important for brewers to avoid cross-contamination, not only from potential beer spoiling bacteria, but also from various house yeast strains. The most commonly used methods for catching yeast cross-contamination involve collecting samples from the fermentation tanks, plating the yeast, and then looking for the presence of multiple strains based on colony morphology and appearance, which takes about 48 hr. With next generation sequencing, we identified strain unique DNA fingerprints in the genomes of the six Avery strains. Using these fingerprints we can devise a simple PCR-based assay for detecting cross-contamination that takes only 3–4 hr. We are also exploring the use of transcriptomics as a tool for addressing other quality control issues related to yeast. Inexpensive next generation sequencing provides a novel approach to quality control that has tremendous potential for a variety of brewing applications.

Dan Driscoll graduated from Colorado State University in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in microbiology and from Oregon State University in 2007 with a master’s degree in applied biotechnology and molecular biology. He worked for several Denver area biotechnology firms from 2007 until 2010, when he was unceremoniously laid off. He decided he would much rather drink beer for a living than constantly subject himself to biotech boom and bust bubbles, so he decided to explore a career in the craft brewing industry. He has been putting his scientific background to work for Avery Brewing Company since 2011 in an effort to help expand upon and improve its brewery quality control.

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