The yeast that is the key to the crisp tasting German beer came from Argentina.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/23/science/la-sci-beer-yeast-20110823

And either the timeline is off in Germany or somehow the yeast got to Europe before Columbus. Apologists worry too much about Hebrews getting to America. Have they no imagination of flying tapirs crossing the pond from America to Europe?

I'm thinking of drinking a good beer now while listening to one of my favorite beer songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i5k4I1AOEI

Hitler escaped to Argentina for the beer yeast-- proof!

I think some diffusionist--or more likely the reporter has been into the suds on this one...

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/23/science/la-sci-beer-yeast-20110823

>Scientists may yet find colonies of the yeast in Europe, he said. Another possibility is that lager yeast originated a bit later than previously thought, added Barbara Dunn, a senior research scientist who works in Sherlock's lab.

Occam's razor...

Edit: Yep... Somehow another hundred years got tossed into the story....

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/08/23/Secret-of-lager-beer-yeast-discovered/UPI-57741314139545/

>A possible stowaway from the New World, the yeast is believed to have fused with a distant relative 500 years ago in the cool caves and monastery cellars where European brewers stored their product, and gave us lager. The clear, cold-fermented beer first brewed by 15th century Bavarians is arguably the most popular alcoholic beverage in the world.

SLC
Who received an e-mail correction yesterday from Will Bagley;
I had a year wrong (1852 instead of 1853), and the wrong Indian chief...
One needs to learn to appreciate fact checking...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2011 10:23AM by SL Cabbie.

I was having some fun with the first post. (I don't drink anymore but still like Tom T. Hall). The dates are mentioned as a problem in the LA Times story, but Occam's razor...

Amerigo Vespucci's voyages were some of the earliest in America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerigo_Vespucci#Expeditions

He allegedly reached Patagonia (where this yeast was found) on his third voyage. On his second voyage (not that far south), he reported beer in America. Here is a link to his letters.

page 24
http://books.google.com/books?id=8wAuAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+letters+of+amerigo+vespucci&hl=en&ei=kP9YTqCSEMjAgQemrsGcDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=snippet&q=beer&f=false

"In this land we found that they drank wine made from their fruits and seeds, like beer, both white and red. The best was made from plums and it was very good."

Occam's razor... The earliest voyages to America included indigenous people making intoxicating beverages and exploration to the region where this recent discovery of yeast was made.

The likely explanation is that yeast and drink were brought back to Europe in the early 1500s. But that is not near as exciting as flying pigs.. I mean tapirs.

Here is a link to the science journal article
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/08/17/1105430108

This would have had a certain je ne sais quoi, non? Then, when American tourists don't understand their German waiter in Munich, they could say in a very loud voice, "I'm Vespucciano, I'm Vespucciano! VES-POOCHY-AAAAno!" I would find this a lot less annoying, for some reason, if I were a German waiter.

If it were true, the BoM would certainly say something about Spatenbräu.

Perhaps they did not have beer...

http://www.amazon.com/BEER-HELPING-PEOPLE-SINCE-12x16/dp/B000O7MB92

Thank you for providing the links. I read an article regarding this hot topic an hour ago before I saw this site. The origins of lager yeast, the yeast used to make lager beer, has been a mystery to experts for several years. However, a study that involved 5 years of fieldwork and genetic evaluation has observed where the material originated. It turns out the beer invented by Germans uses yeast that originates from Argentina. I believe most of us are aware that lager is the most popular style of beer in the world, and this discovery is a great of piece of information. Isn't it?

All kidding aside about the Book of Mormon fantasy people, this discovery is a remarkable piece of information.

Hopefully we will see articles from historians about it as they research 15th and 16th century writings. There will probably also be pseudo-history speculations of pre-Columbus voyages.

This article suggests that the early lagers might have been first made with the standard yeast "below its optimal fermentation temperature".

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=patagonia-lager-yeast

"The process of brewing lager seems to predate a plausible transatlantic crossing of S. eubayanus, however, so it may be that early lagers were produced with standard ale yeast working below its optimal fermentation temperature. "The moment S. eubayanus comes on the scene and forms a hybrid, that would have immediately outcompeted S. cerevisiae in those environments," Hittinger says."

That could be the case because lager did not begin to gain more widespread popularity until the 1500s. Catholic missionary and monk connections to this will also be interesting to study. The Benedictine Monks were beer brewers and Benedictine missionaries were some of the first sent to America.

lagers didn't start appearing until at least the 1700s. Anyone who says otherwise simply doesn't know his beer history. Period.

from my 20 years of beer making, German lagers are rather new to the region. Before lagers they made ales called "Altbier" or old beer. Anyway, the B of M talks about people going to America, not coming from America. Also, I really don't think there are very many cold tolerant yeasts growing around Jerusalem and mind you Argentina is in the Southern Hemisphere part of which is near the South Pole.

Plenty of time for the yeast to be brought from Argentina to Germany. Nothing miraculous there at all. Complete non-story.

It was in jest with Book of Mormon people going from America to Europe before Columbus (or flying tapirs bringing the yeast). I just joking around with that part.

Historical records do show the cold brewed beer in Southern Germany before Columbus, but it did not become more widespread until the 1500s.

Here is a link with some interesting history. Scroll down a little to "Lager, an Accident?"

http://www.germanbeerinstitute.com/history.html

"A Munich town council record mentioned cold-fermented beer as early as 1420."

"In 1553, summer brewing was outlawed altogether in Bavaria. By then the authorities--always worried about the supply of healthy summer beer--had obviously learned that cold fermentation yielded a purer beer with better keeping qualities than possessed by those unwittingly brewed and probably bacterially infected top-fermented beers of summer. The official brewing season was, therefore, restricted to between St. Michael's Day (September 29) and St. George's Day (April 23). From spring to fall, brewers had to seek alternate employment. It is obvious that this kind of brew schedule, decreed from above, favored the production of lagers. In many breweries, you simply could not make ales in the cold Bavarian winters."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/2011 07:04PM by Hoggle.

You can cold ferment a beer with ale yeast. The Germans still do it today. As someone else in this thread mentioned, it's called altbier.

"You simply cannot make ales during the cold winters". Bullshit. It was - and is - done all the time.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/2011 06:30PM by helamonster.

Please let the German Beer Institute and the scientists who discovered the South American yeast know that they are full of "bullshit".

What worries me will be the diffusionist cranks that will write their bullshit about trans-Atlantic voyages before Columbus.

And I've learned more about beer and how it's made than all the rest of RfM combined. I feel safe saying my level of knowledge approaches expertise.

By the way, yeast can be carried on wind currents over very great distances. It doesn't have to be carried anywhere by humans, necesarily.

Fine, you are more of an authority. Now tell the scientists. I don't give a shit. Like I have maintained from the beginning of this post, bullshit diffusionism theories are my biggest concern. I stated in the beginning posts where some have written that the standard ale yeast may have been used below its optimal temperature.

You don't need to piss beer over this. Your 1700 claim probably needs some source reference though, because the historical documents tend to show lager earlier than you say.

It has nothing to do with yeast strains, though many people DO confuse the two. The LAGERING of beer in Germany has been done fully as long as the source documents claim.

But the use of LAGER YEASTS is a relatively recent phenomenon that does not predate the Reinheitsgebot.

And I still maintain that the GBI people are NOT scientists, but PR shills paid to sell the most palatable version of German beer history.

Feel free to contact the research scientists. Here is the abstract to their study. You will find their names and institutions at the link.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/08/17/1105430108

"Lager-beer, first brewed in the 15th century, employs an allotetraploid hybrid yeast, Saccharomyces pastorianus (syn. Saccharomyces carlsbergensis), a domesticated species created by the fusion of a Saccharomyces cerevisiae ale-yeast with an unknown cryotolerant Saccharomyces species."

"This study shows that combining microbial ecology with comparative genomics facilitates the discovery and preservation of wild genetic stocks of domesticated microbes to trace their history, identify genetic changes, and suggest paths to further industrial improvement."

I'm sure any Book of Mormon beer would be pure and nonalcoholic just like the wine Jesus was drinking.

speaking of alcohol in the B of M, there was a story about the Nephites providing alcohol to the lamanites and while they were drunk, they Nephites snuck in and released their captive Nephites. Ok, where did they get the "wine". There were no grapes so I assume they used some kind of fruit. But where did they get their knowlege to make the stuff and bottle and store it? Boy these Nephites were very resourceful - making steel before anyone else and now wine in such a difficult environment.

Joseph was clearly a bitter man!