Scientists develop a hoppy-yet-hops-free beer (taste, flavor, inexpensive)

[uggabugga]

bad news for hops farmers.

UC Berkeley scientists are brewing hoppy beers... without the hops — Berkeleyside

Hoppy beer is all the rage among craft brewers and beer lovers, and now UC Berkeley biologists have come up with a way to create these unique flavors and aromas without using hops.

The researchers created strains of brewer’s yeast that not only ferment the beer but also provide two of the prominent flavor notes provided by hops. In double-blind taste tests, employees of Lagunitas Brewing Company in Petaluma, California, characterized beer made from the engineered strains as more hoppy than a control beer made with regular yeast and Cascade hops.

The engineered yeast strains were altered using CRISPR-Cas9, a simple and inexpensive gene-editing tool invented at UC Berkeley. Denby and Li inserted four new genes plus the promoters that regulate the genes into industrial brewer’s yeast. Two of the genes – linalool synthase and geraniol synthase – code for enzymes that produce flavor components common to many plants. In this instance, the genes came from mint and basil, respectively. Genes from other plants that were reported to have linalool synthase activity, such as olive and strawberry, were not as easy to work with.

[Brian_M]

And will the yeast do the Other important factor that hops currently provides? that of preservative? That's equally as important for those of us who homebrew.

[mensaguy]

In typical brews, the first hops are added early in the boil to bitter down the sweetness of the malts. The bittering hops add very little to the flavor profile of the beer. Assuming proper adjustments for Alpha Acids, almost any variety of hops could be used for bittering.