Alcohol and Fermentation

S. cerevisiae isn’t only a workhorse model organism in biology, it’s also responsible for nearly all of the industrial ethanol fermentation that takes place to give us beer, wine, the precursors to distilled spirits, and biofuel. However, other yeast species are also ethanol tolerant, including the lager yeast S. uvarum (a hybrid between S. cerevisiae and S. eubayanus) and many wild yeasts.

In collaboration with Indiana craft brewers Rob Caputo and Justin Miller, we are bioprospecting for wild yeasts with desirable brewing characteristics, brewing test batches of beer, and conducting sensory analyses of the final products. This work was originally funded by the Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship in Biotechnology and has in part resulted in the creation of a start-up company called Wild Pitch Yeast

To date, we have worked with Cardinal Spirits, Central State Brewing, the Flat 12 Bierwerks, Function Brewing, Tin Man Brewing Company, and Upland Brewing Company.