The ‘holy grail’ of beer yeasts: How genetically-modified IPAs could stay fresh forever

Yeast is central to brewing, as it turns the sugars provided by barley malt and other grains into alcohol, while also adding its own flavours.

Berkeley Yeast edits the DNA of yeast strains to remove or add a certain gene. One of its products, its Tropics yeast, has been tweaked to provide the taste of passion fruit and guava.

If you’re living in the US, which has more relaxed regulations on GM foods than most countries, you might have already tried beers made with Berkeley Yeast’s products, as they are already being used by craft breweries across the country. Three of these brewers are Temescal, Alvarado Street and Cellarmaker, which are all from California.

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“The holy grail of what yeast-makers like Berkeley want to do is to engineer an IPA that stays fresh forever, tastes consistent everywhere you go, and its hops never go old,” [Lagunitas Brewing’s Jeremy Marshall] says. “And I think those kinds of manufacturers are well on their way to that goal.”