Beauty and the yeast

Rebecca Newman, quality control manager with Dogfish Head Craft Brewery says the microbiology of yeast is crucial to a beer's taste. (4:02)

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WASHINGTON - A beer drinker looking to quench his thirst might not give a second thought to what microbiologists call "the master ingredient" in beer.

"I think the typical consumer doesn't really think about the yeast, but if it goes wrong they'll definitely know it was a yeast problem," says Rebecca Newman, quality control manager for Dogfish Head Craft Brewery.

Newman was recruited by Anheuser-Busch right out of college in the mid-'80s, armed with a degree in food science and technology.

She and Charlie Bamforth, Ph.D., Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences, University of California - Davis, will be speaking Thursday evening at the headquarters of the American Society for Microbiology, in an event called "The Microbiology of Beer."

The American Academy of Microbiology produced a report entitled "If the yeast ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."

"I look at yeast as being the conductor of an orchestra, with all the ingredients as the instruments that would go into making the different beers," says Newman.

And I look at the yeast as conducting all those ingredients to come up with a final beer flavor," says Newman.

See the article here:
Got beer? Thank a microbiologist