The yeast is the magic sauce. The only reason fermentation exists is because of it. Over time, yeasts change from selective culturing similar to dogs.
Mostly, it's pendantic, probably marketing bullshit as far as flavors go, but rates do change, so if there's an OG recipie, the speed at which the yeast converts sugars to alcohol could be different, and so could the brew if using modern yeast on an old recipie
Good point. I can’t remember if the brewing process generally kills all the yeast, but might spores survive? It seems like trying to culture yeast from the bottles would be way more efficient than looking at any recovered DNA
Fermentation kills some yeast but not all of it. If you take the sediment from the bottom of a beer and incubate it, you can get a colony of yeast with the same characteristics of the original brew. This only works with relatively fresh beers, however. After 162 years I doubt any are still alive.
After 162 years no normally no yeast would survive but fascinatingly yeast can enter a hibernation state when kept at 32-50 degrees. Dormant yeast can survive for a very long time. I know some yeasts have successfully been revived from much older sources. Considering it was likely cold enough where they discovered it, and that it’s bottle-conditioned rather than pasteurized due to its age. It’s not completely impossible living samples could be obtained.
After 162 years no normally no yeast would survive
So. My brain took this, put a dark delivery on it, and made it the opening line of a trailer for a satiracal horror movie à la The Stuff where people resurrect a dormant beer yeast and it becomes the most popular beer in the world even as it survives digestion and begins infecting its drinkers. People ferment inside their own bodies, bursting into floods of man beer when killed.
I can’t remember if the brewing process generally kills all the yeast
You brew before you ferment. The brewing is what breaks down the grain into sugars that the yeast can actually access.
You are correct that brewing kills stuff off, which is one of the reasons people historically drank beer. They didn't know the whys and the hows of beer being safer to drink than water but they knew it was better to have a mug than drink from the local pond.
The brewing process was killing off all the nasty stuff and the yeast added afterwards turning the sugar into alcohol made it an inhospitable environment for most germs after the fact.
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u/glittervector 8h ago
DNA? Like from the yeast?
Why would you need DNA to reconstruct a beer recipe?