ABSTRACT
Biotechnology Perspectives Jørgen Hansen Carlsberg Research Laboratory, Copenhagen-Valby, Denmark
Jure Piškur BioCentrum-DTU, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
1INTRODUCTION
One of the main milestones of Old World civilization was reached when cereals became the central nutritional source of humans. This change in diet provided our ancestors, nomadic hunters and collectors of fruits, with the option to settle down and build a more permanent home. This farming society in turn formed the basis for the invention of two of the oldest food technologies, bread baking and brewing, the latter providing early societies with a nutritious and relatively safe drink that would also work as an intoxicant. Since then these two technologies have become an integral part of humankind’s daily life and activities. The central biological agent of both baking and brewing are unicellular fungi, so-called yeast. In the following, we will focus on the role of yeast in beer brewing, ancient as well as contemporary, and describe the biodiversity of the organisms used. The biological processes underlying the fermentation process will be discussed in the context of the targeted breeding of these organisms. Finally, the perspectives for the usage of yeast in brewing in the future will briefly discussed.
