OnTap Magazine

TECH TALK O ne of the defining characteristics of humankind has been a person’s ability to bend the forces of nature to his or her will. Nowhere has this been more prominent than in the domestication and guided evolution of agricultural and industrial organisms. Whether it is the development of wheat and cattle for better production or genetically engineering salmon to grow quicker, man has been on an ongoing quest for perfection. Of course, the brewing industry is no exception, with evidence of yeast domestication as early as the 1500s. Quite the feat since we were not even aware of microbes until the middle of the 17 th century. Fermentation used to be rather a wild affair since the lack of microbial knowledge basically left it in the hands of the gods. However, the 16 th century saw the move from homebrewing to pub brewing and these early commercial brewers started employing continuous "backslopping", where part of an old batch of beer would be used as an inoculum for a new batch. This action inadvertently kick- started the domestication of yeast since brewers were now consciously, albeit unknowingly, selecting the best yeast for the product they wanted to produce. CONSISTENCY VS DIVERSITY Today brewing is a much different ball game. Gone are the days of “backslopping” and selection in breweries. If a brewer wants a specific yeast profile in his beer, it’s as easy as hopping online and ordering it. Yeast will also only be used for a couple of generations before being discarded and the brewer returning to a frozen stock or ordering again. This, of course, is fantastic for consistency in the final product but one can also argue that this consistency comes at the price of diversity. It was exactly these inconsistencies and mutations that we now so actively avoid which produced the current iterations of brewers’ yeast we have We have South African malt, hops and of course, water, but there has always been one ingredient stopping local brewers from producing a truly South African beer. Christopher Rothmann and Dr. Errol Cason are on a mission to create a range of local yeast strains. ULTIMATE SOUTH AFRICAN BEER YEASTSPLORATION ON THE HUNT FOR THE 48 | Spring 2019 | ontapmag.co.za