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Genetically Engineered Beers Could Make Hoppy IPAs Tastier And Cheaper

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Biotechnology could help us live longer, healthier lives, which means more days to sample the abundance of microbrews on the scene. Fortunately, biotech could also help bring us even more hoppy beers to spend our time sampling, and at less cost.

Beer is typically made from malted barley, yeast, water and added ingredients - usually from plants like hops - for flavor. Now researchers have managed to engineer brewer's yeast to produce the same bitter flavor that hops lends to all those fancy India Pale Ales that have come to dominate the microbrew scene in the U.S. and elsewhere.

While purists might scoff at the notion of an IPA created through engineering rather than lovingly hand-crafted by a master brewer over weeks, the research team led by Jay Keasling at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Charles Denby from the University of California Berkeley says there are multiple benefits.

"This application promises to generate hop flavors with more consistency than traditional hop additions, as hop preparations are notoriously variable in the content of their essential oil and the flavor they impart to beer," reads their research paper published this week in the journal Nature Communications.

Hops are not only expensive, but generating a consistent flavor from the crop can be difficult because it can vary from season to season and plant to plant due to genetic, environmental, and processing factors. Engineering that flavor into the yeast can give brewers control of the flavor they seek at a lower cost. 

For the study, the authors added DNA from mint and basil into strains of yeast. This increased the production of linalool and geraniol, molecules found in essential oil in hops that are responsible for the flowers' bitter flavor. 

As part of the research, double-blind taste tests were conducted with 40 participants and the engineered beer was determined to have a more hoppy flavor than normal dry-hopped brews.

If you're still a little creeped out by the idea of a genetically engineered IPA, the authors say their process is actually more green because the traditional process of flavoring beers can involve "non-renewable chemicals typical of industrial extraction."

"While historic consumer trepidation towards genetically engineered foods is of concern for widespread adoption, the general increase in consumer acceptance of such foods when tied to increased sustainability is encouraging," the paper reads.

The researchers say their work could lay the foundation for all sorts of genetically-engineered flavors in brews going forward.

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