Origins of Lager Found In Argentina

utkonos writes "After decades of pondering, scientists have found the secret to the creation of lager. An elusive species of yeast isolated in the forests of Argentina was key to the invention of the crisp-tasting German beer. From the article: 'Their best bet is that centuries ago, S. eubayanus somehow found its way to Europe and hybridized with the domestic yeast used to brew ale, creating an organism that can ferment at the lower temperatures used to make lager. Geneticists have known since the 1980s that the yeast brewers use to make lager, S. pastorianus, was a hybrid of two yeast species: S. cerevisiae — used to make ales, wine and bread — and some other, unidentified organism.'"

Comments

Re:They can keep it!

[businessnerd]

Ale vs Lager only refers to the type of yeast and the temperature at which it was fermented. It has nothing to do with the color/opacity. While most ales the typical beer drinker encounters are darker than lagers, there are plenty of examples of lager styles that are very dark (e.g. doppelbock). Also, color does not always tell you how much flavor the beer has. It is just an indicator of which flavors you are likely to have more of, and even then, there are ways of making a really dark, yet relatively flavorless beer. For example, a beer that used a lot of "black patent malt" but is otherwise light on barley malt and hops would be as black as a Guinness but as flavorful as a Keystone Light.