For home brewers, having the freshest ingredients is usually a wise way to go, but one brewer is looking to craft his next ale with some old yeast. Like, really freaking old yeast.
Dr. Raul Cano is planning to craft a beer using yeast that is said to be 45 million years old. As if ripping a page right from the script of Jurassic Park, Cano took a sample of microscopic bacteria from some amber, which led to the discovery that the sample he pulled was actually yeast used to brew beer. Jackpot for one of the most unique beers ever to be crafted. That’s the hope for Cano, anyway. I know I wouldn’t eat something that was used with ingredients that were more than a few years old, but 45-million-year old yeast is apparently no big deal.
“Once you’ve established that the yeast is saccharomyces cerevisiae, or a relative of it, you still don’t know if it’s a brewer’s yeast or baker’s yeast or what kind of yeast,” Cano says. “So then we actually tested them in the brewing process.”
Because Cano’s brewing company is working with 45-million-year-old yeast, it requires accumulating enough to start the mass brewing process. As so many things do these days, a crowdfunding campaign was organized to rack up presales once the beer is crafted. Dubbed as “the world’s oldest beer on the market,” the online funding attempt also says plans for a beer using 25-million-year-old ingredients is also in the fold, just in case you want something a little more fresh.
I’m no beer expert, but I’d be willing to give it a try. Considering the beer might be 45 million years in the making, it’s safe to say I may never get another chance to sip on it.
[UPROXX]
