Broadcast Date: December 12, 2018
View the Webinar
Webinar Summary
As sour-beer popularity grows, an increasing number of craft brewers are embracing traditional production practices such as coolship-inoculated fermentations and oak-barrel maturation. Cooling of wort in a coolship allows for microbes from the environment and/or brewhouse to take hold and the ensuing, highly complex, spontaneous fermentations yield unique beer styles. These beers typically undergo extended periods of maturation in barrels, providing opportunity for a succession of microbial species to play their part, though for some species their part is not always desirable. This webinar will summarize research in the Curtin lab that makes use of next-generation sequencing tools to look at how microbial populations develop over time, and how much variation is generated when you put the same beer into many different barrels. Come and take in the bug’s eye view of funky fermentations and barrel maturation!
Webinar Takeaways:
- American Coolship ales follow similar fermentation progression, in terms of yeast and bacterial species present, as have been described previously in traditional lambic-style beers of Belgium.
- Barrels introduce substantial variation into the development of microbial populations in beer.
Who Should Attend:
Brewers who want to learn more about the microbiology of sour beer production and QC/lab managers wanting to learn about the applications of sequencing technology in monitoring of microbial populations during brewing.
About the Presenter
Dr. Chris Curtin
Oregon State University | Dr. Chris Curtin joined Oregon State University as an Assistant Professor of Brewing Microbiology in 2016. Prior to this he was Research Manager – Biosciences at the Australian Wine Research Institute, where he led a program of research focused on the role of yeast in development of wine flavor. A major focus of his work has been understanding the biology of non-conventional yeasts, particularly Brettanomyces, and how they can be used in fermentation systems. At OSU his lab uses high-throughput screening tools and next-generation sequencing to better understand the microbes involved in brewing. |
