{"id":47176,"date":"2021-10-01T19:08:19","date_gmt":"2021-10-01T23:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebeertimes.com\/?p=47176"},"modified":"2026-06-28T19:37:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T23:37:23","slug":"mother-of-all-lager-yeasts-forests-chilean-patagonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebeertimes.com\/en\/mother-of-all-lager-yeasts-forests-chilean-patagonia\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mother of All Lager Yeasts That Grows in the Forests of Chilean Patagonia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By dicyt.com<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In the bark of lenga beech, coig\u00fce and araucaria trees in the Chilean Patagonian forest, the lost genetic link from which all the world’s lager beers are born lay hidden for centuries.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Lager
Cyttaria espinosae (llao llao or dig\u00fce\u00f1es)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With an annual per capita consumption of 52.6 liters, Chile is the fourth largest beer consumer in Latin America, surpassed only by Mexico, Brazil and Colombia.<\/p>\n

However, despite strong sales and consumption figures, all the beer varieties<\/a> available on the market \u2014 including domestic brands \u2014 have a “foreign” origin when it comes to the yeasts used to brew them.<\/p>\n

Take the case of lager-style beers, the most consumed type of beer not only in Chile but worldwide, recognizable by their pronounced flavor best enjoyed cold and their typical golden color in the most common versions.<\/p>\n

95% of the industry that produces this beer uses, for fermentation, a yeast variety known as Saccharomyces pastorianus<\/em>, developed over 500 years in the Bavaria region of southeastern Germany and first discovered in the Carlsberg brewery’s laboratories by Emil Christian Hansen<\/a> in 1875.<\/p>\n

Since at least 1985, it has been known that Saccharomyces pastorianus<\/em> is a hybrid yeast \u2014 the result of combining two pure yeast species.<\/p>\n

While half of its genes come from the much more common Saccharomyces cerevisiae<\/em>, used in the production of ale or “top-fermented” beers, the other half comes from a species whose identity eluded scientists for many years.<\/p>\n