In a news story for the Inside Science News Service this week, staff journalist and editor Jason Socrates Bardi describes a project by California scientists who genetically engineered yeast with basil and mint genes to give beer a hoppy flavor without the need to add the actual flowers.
Read the story for free at https://tinyurl.com/ya6n53nh
Inside Science is an editorially independent nonprofit journalism venture operated by the American Institute of Physics.
Adding hops to beer emerged in Europe hundreds of years ago as a way of cutting the cloying sweetness beers might otherwise have. Hops are added to the boiling brews to impart bitterness, and they are also added late in the brewing process, a process known as “dry hopping” to impart complex flavors.
In the story, Bardi describes how hops, a prized floral flavoring of ales, has an oversized water bill, with cultivation of the plants requiring 100 billion liters of water per year in the United States alone. Hoping to offer a way to greatly reduce the environmental impact of making beer, scientists in California conducted blind taste tests of their new brews against a traditional American pale ale and found that people ranked the beer produced with the genetically modified yeast as “hoppier.”
ABOUT INSIDE SCIENCE:
Inside Science is an editorially independent nonprofit science news service run out of the American Institute of Physics and supported by a coalition of underwriters. It produces original breaking news stories, features, essays, illustrations, documentaries, animations and news videos, all of which are procurable for syndication by news organizations or available on our web site. https://www.insidescience.org
ABOUT AIP:
The American Institute of Physics is an organization of physical science societies, representing scientists, engineers, educators, and students. AIP delivers valuable services and expertise in education and student programs, science communications, government relations, career services, statistical research in physics employment and education, industrial outreach, and the history of physics and allied fields. AIP publishes Physics Today, the most closely followed magazine of the physical sciences community. www.aip.org
Terry Bunch
