WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.600 --> 00:00:03.399 Welcome. This is Marsha for Radio I. Today I will 2 00:00:03.439 --> 00:00:08.080 be reading National Geographic magazine debted February twenty twenty six, 3 00:00:08.199 --> 00:00:11.679 which is donated by the publisher as a reminder. RADIOI 4 00:00:11.839 --> 00:00:14.400 is a reading service intended for people who are blind 5 00:00:14.919 --> 00:00:17.359 or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read 6 00:00:17.399 --> 00:00:20.760 printed material. Please join me now for the first article 7 00:00:21.160 --> 00:00:27.320 titled The Quest to re Engineer Beer by Adam Rogers. 8 00:00:28.199 --> 00:00:32.240 Scientists in Belgium that celebrated bastion of ancient beer culture 9 00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:37.280 are harnessing genetic breakthroughs and machine learning to reimagine how 10 00:00:37.320 --> 00:00:40.600 great booze gets built. Here's how their revelations in the 11 00:00:40.719 --> 00:00:46.240 lab could transform the global beer industry. The secretive beer 12 00:00:46.359 --> 00:00:49.560 lab inside the headquarters of the world's biggest brewing company 13 00:00:49.600 --> 00:00:54.280 doesn't often allow visitors, but today ab InBev has something 14 00:00:54.359 --> 00:00:56.719 it would like to show off, so David de Schutter, 15 00:00:57.320 --> 00:01:01.640 the head of ab Imbev's Global Innovationation and Technology Center, 16 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:04.920 the official name of the beer Lab, is showing me around. 17 00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:08.680 The squat black building on the outskirts of Luvan, Belgium, 18 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:12.000 about a half hour east of Brussels, Belgium, is one 19 00:01:12.040 --> 00:01:15.319 of beer's ancestral Homelands. Across the street from the lab 20 00:01:15.439 --> 00:01:19.200 is the brewery that makes Stella Artois. Luvan Is crossed 21 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:22.599 by canals originally built by brewers to move their product. 22 00:01:22.920 --> 00:01:25.519 This is a beer company in a beer town in 23 00:01:25.599 --> 00:01:29.159 a beer country. So the office building has a dedicated 24 00:01:29.200 --> 00:01:33.680 tasting room with a heggerator. When we get there to 25 00:01:33.799 --> 00:01:37.560 Shooter's colleagues have arrayed some snacks along with twelve different 26 00:01:37.640 --> 00:01:39.959 kinds of beer for me to try. That's enough beer 27 00:01:39.959 --> 00:01:44.200 to give Homer Simpson pause. Taste testing alcohol typically demands 28 00:01:44.200 --> 00:01:48.120 small SIPs, copious notes, and a lot of hepatic fortitude, 29 00:01:48.319 --> 00:01:52.040 but not today, because most of those beers are alcohol free. 30 00:01:52.239 --> 00:01:55.000 This might come as a surprise after all. In addition 31 00:01:55.079 --> 00:02:00.480 to Stella, a b Imbev owns Budweiser, Corona Modello, Globe, 32 00:02:00.799 --> 00:02:03.799 and several other well known brands. It is to beer 33 00:02:03.879 --> 00:02:07.359 what Google is to the Internet, or Exon Mobil is 34 00:02:07.400 --> 00:02:11.479 to oil, and beer is generally understood to be alcoholic. 35 00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:15.319 Yet here I am taking a skeptical sip of michelob 36 00:02:15.479 --> 00:02:20.199 Ultra Zero and Corona Sero, a b Imbev's state of 37 00:02:20.199 --> 00:02:24.280 the art flagship non alcoholic beers. As a technical matter, 38 00:02:24.439 --> 00:02:26.439 it's not hard to get the alcohol out of beer, 39 00:02:26.680 --> 00:02:29.080 but it's hard to make the result taste good. You 40 00:02:29.159 --> 00:02:31.560 tend to get something that is, to paraphrase the author 41 00:02:31.599 --> 00:02:36.800 Douglas Adams, almost but not quite entirely unlike beer. Ab 42 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:41.439 Imbev introduced micalob ultra zero in early twenty twenty five 43 00:02:41.599 --> 00:02:45.719 as the worldwide market for na beer's was quickly ramping up, 44 00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:49.439 and these were the best tasting examples its science could deliver. 45 00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:53.240 They were fine. The sugar is proud of these beers, 46 00:02:53.479 --> 00:02:56.919 but he must know they're merely fine. Then he offers 47 00:02:56.919 --> 00:02:58.800 me a bottle of the new state of the art. 48 00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:05.759 This is ab Imbev's latest biotechnological invention, non alcoholic negra medello, 49 00:03:06.280 --> 00:03:09.719 made with something dubbed smart yeast, a new strain of 50 00:03:09.759 --> 00:03:14.599 the essential microorganism that makes all beer possible. Medello is 51 00:03:14.599 --> 00:03:19.599 typically bottled at five point four percent alcohol. Smart East Medello, 52 00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:23.159 as I came to call it, clocks in at zero 53 00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:26.599 point four percent at the moment. Smart Yeast medello is 54 00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:31.319 available only in Mexico. It's basically still in beta. Medello 55 00:03:31.479 --> 00:03:34.840 is my usual order with Mexican food, so I'm familiar 56 00:03:34.919 --> 00:03:39.280 enough to detect deviation from speck. In beer terms, negro 57 00:03:39.360 --> 00:03:43.199 medello is a Munich type dunkle, mahogany colored and malty. 58 00:03:43.639 --> 00:03:46.080 I take a whiff. It has the same roasted, hoppy 59 00:03:46.120 --> 00:03:49.400 aroma of medello. Now a sip, it has a good 60 00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:53.120 balance of sweeter, malt and bitterness. The mouth feel seems 61 00:03:53.159 --> 00:03:57.240 a little thin, maybe slightly too astringent. It wasn't quite medello, 62 00:03:57.280 --> 00:04:01.120 but it was eminently drinkable. The shooter takes a sip too, 63 00:04:01.479 --> 00:04:04.439 then looks at me. We're super excited about this, he says. 64 00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:09.520 In twenty twenty four, ab Imbev made sixty billion dollars 65 00:04:09.560 --> 00:04:13.680 and produced fifteen billion gallons of beer. But today, for 66 00:04:13.719 --> 00:04:17.040 the first time, after thousands of years of uninterrupted success, 67 00:04:17.439 --> 00:04:21.240 the nearly trillion dollar beer industry is in decline. In 68 00:04:21.279 --> 00:04:25.959 beer drinking epicenters like Belgium and Australia, consumption has gone 69 00:04:25.959 --> 00:04:29.959 down by fifty percent in the past half century. Beer 70 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:32.720 consumption in the United States is down twenty five percent 71 00:04:32.800 --> 00:04:36.360 since nineteen eighty. In twenty twenty three, Americans bought less 72 00:04:36.399 --> 00:04:39.680 beer than in any other country than in any other 73 00:04:39.759 --> 00:04:44.000 year this century. Younger people in particular are drinking less, 74 00:04:44.040 --> 00:04:46.920 and no one's quite sure why it's happening in places 75 00:04:46.959 --> 00:04:50.519 where marijuana is legal and where it's illegal, so that's 76 00:04:50.560 --> 00:04:53.600 not the culprit. There's certainly more health conscious and more 77 00:04:53.639 --> 00:04:57.639 skeptical of even moderate amounts of alcohol. A recent report 78 00:04:57.759 --> 00:05:03.319 from Rebaubank hinted that gen zers spend less on booze 79 00:05:03.319 --> 00:05:06.199 because they have less money overall. But then why are 80 00:05:06.319 --> 00:05:10.519 canned cocktails surging? Do gen zers really prefer a tall 81 00:05:10.600 --> 00:05:15.680 can of salted caramel banana pina colada. What's abundantly clear 82 00:05:15.839 --> 00:05:19.360 is that beer is taking the hit category wide, from 83 00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:23.959 ultra bitter West Coast IPAs to English pub style ales. 84 00:05:24.040 --> 00:05:28.319 With just one glaring exception, non alcoholic beer. Sales of 85 00:05:28.439 --> 00:05:32.160 NA beer is defined as under zero point five percent 86 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:35.040 alcohol by volume, were up twenty nine percent in twenty 87 00:05:35.079 --> 00:05:38.839 twenty four in the US. The marketing team at ab 88 00:05:38.959 --> 00:05:43.240 Imbev saw this coming for years. It has seen strong 89 00:05:43.279 --> 00:05:46.480 sales of so called light beers, lower in calories and 90 00:05:46.560 --> 00:05:49.439 with less alcohol than a standard brew. And from a 91 00:05:49.439 --> 00:05:54.000 business perspective, non alcoholic beer is all upside. It's a premium, 92 00:05:54.079 --> 00:05:59.399 high priced product, says Dave Infant, author of the booze 93 00:05:59.399 --> 00:06:03.519 industry newsletter Fingers And in the US, the companies don't 94 00:06:03.519 --> 00:06:06.519 pay excise taxes on beer with no alcohol, so the 95 00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:10.560 margins relative are really attractive, and a beer could be 96 00:06:10.600 --> 00:06:13.879 the wind that the industry sorely needs now. So ab 97 00:06:14.120 --> 00:06:17.839 Imbev's scientists went back to the lab, hunting for a 98 00:06:17.839 --> 00:06:20.800 new way to make beer without alcohol that tasted as 99 00:06:20.839 --> 00:06:23.480 good as beer with it. They found a lot more, 100 00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:26.160 something that might explain not just how to make a 101 00:06:26.199 --> 00:06:28.600 new beer, but why people like it in the first place. 102 00:06:29.040 --> 00:06:32.839 If the science of beer enjoying has a unified field theory, 103 00:06:32.879 --> 00:06:36.839 this was the god particle. The key was the yeast. 104 00:06:37.240 --> 00:06:39.920 Yeast ferments, which is to say, it eats sugar and 105 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:44.560 poops out carbon dioxide and alcohol. That is its whole 106 00:06:44.759 --> 00:06:48.560 ontological deal. And what if you could engineer a yeast 107 00:06:48.639 --> 00:06:50.959 that doesn't make alcohol at all? It would be a 108 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:55.680 biochemical oxymoron, like a tree that grows bacon. In theory, 109 00:06:55.839 --> 00:06:58.519 such a yeast could be a building block for na 110 00:06:58.680 --> 00:07:03.759 negromdella and every other label on Imbev's shelf. To create 111 00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:08.680 this mycological unicorn, the company turned to one of the 112 00:07:08.680 --> 00:07:12.360 world's foremost scientists of beer, a yeast whisper of sorts 113 00:07:12.759 --> 00:07:17.199 named Kevin Verstrappin whose lab happens to be on the 114 00:07:17.240 --> 00:07:21.439 other side of town from ab Imbev headquarters. Led by 115 00:07:21.439 --> 00:07:24.480 its mad beer scientists, the company embarked on a quest 116 00:07:24.519 --> 00:07:29.839 almost Frankensteinian in its ambition and implications, with the potential 117 00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:34.079 to unlock not just non alcoholic beer but also ana wine, 118 00:07:34.199 --> 00:07:38.199 gin whiskey. The god particle of beer holds the potential 119 00:07:38.279 --> 00:07:44.279 to be infinite in its beneficence. Get some grain, usually barley, malted. 120 00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:47.600 That is, let the seeds germinate, so they start making 121 00:07:47.759 --> 00:07:51.319 enzymes that convert their starch into sugar. Grind that up 122 00:07:51.360 --> 00:07:55.959 and put it in boiling water weight add yease weight. Congratulations, 123 00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:59.360 you have made beer. Brewers are lovely nerds who delight 124 00:07:59.439 --> 00:08:03.319 in making things complicated, but basically that's it. Yet for 125 00:08:03.399 --> 00:08:07.959 all that simplicity, beer is also deceptively complex. Amid a 126 00:08:08.120 --> 00:08:12.399 zillion variations of method and recipe. Any given beer comprises 127 00:08:12.439 --> 00:08:15.000 not only the fizz of carbon dioxide and the sting 128 00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:17.879 of alcohol, but also flavor is drawn from the grain, 129 00:08:18.279 --> 00:08:21.279 from the bitter flowers of a plant called hops, and 130 00:08:21.399 --> 00:08:29.199 from the biochemical transformations of yeast. Yeast, specifically sachoronomi ss serrebisai, 131 00:08:29.920 --> 00:08:32.360 is found just about everywhere on Earth. It's the key 132 00:08:32.399 --> 00:08:36.039 to the foods that civilized human kind. Bread for one, 133 00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:39.559 beer for another. The first beer like drinks date back 134 00:08:39.639 --> 00:08:42.960 some eight thousand years, though brewers didn't know what yeast 135 00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:47.000 was until the mid eighteen hundreds. Early brewers simply relied 136 00:08:47.080 --> 00:08:50.440 on the alchemy of fermentation to turn little more than 137 00:08:50.480 --> 00:08:54.480 breakfast porridge into a flavorful beverage that also made people 138 00:08:54.519 --> 00:08:58.120 feel good and sold for good money. If yeast didn't exist, 139 00:08:58.360 --> 00:09:02.120 we'd have to invent it. By nineteen twelve, a b 140 00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:06.200 imbev had determined that the combination of flagging beer consumption 141 00:09:06.639 --> 00:09:12.799 and flavorless ana beer represented both of business and biotechnological opportunity. 142 00:09:13.279 --> 00:09:16.679 There was just one problem. Non alcoholic beers have historically been, 143 00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:21.240 in a word, bad brewers made near beers. By shortening 144 00:09:21.240 --> 00:09:25.120 fermentation time, the yeast made less alcohol, and the results 145 00:09:25.120 --> 00:09:30.320 tasted like watered down wheaties. No alcohol beer was quite stagnant, 146 00:09:30.679 --> 00:09:35.200 says De Shuter. Nobody has really put effort into R 147 00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:39.200 and D as De Shooter's team started digging in the tech, 148 00:09:39.320 --> 00:09:44.440 improved membranes and reverse osmosis like water purification could filter 149 00:09:44.559 --> 00:09:48.279 out alcohol. Heating beer with steam would cause the alcohol 150 00:09:48.399 --> 00:09:51.840 to evaborate. This new generation of NA beer was better, 151 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:55.840 but still had some problems. Beer contains proteins and heating 152 00:09:55.879 --> 00:10:02.480 them produced dimethyl sulfide, the aroma of boiled vegetables, components 153 00:10:02.480 --> 00:10:05.240 that are not necessarily part of the fresh beer aroma. 154 00:10:05.360 --> 00:10:08.840 The shooter says, with the diplomat's touch, So we set 155 00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:11.759 ourselves the goal, the dream to make no alcohol beer 156 00:10:11.799 --> 00:10:14.960 as good as regular beer. That's a tall order. Ab 157 00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:17.759 Imbev is going to put NA beer into a bottle, 158 00:10:17.840 --> 00:10:22.919 That says Budwiser. Really, the shooter insists that this isn't 159 00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:27.600 about replacing Bud for a beer agnostic generation. It's about 160 00:10:27.600 --> 00:10:30.600 building something new. The way we measure that is with 161 00:10:30.759 --> 00:10:34.799 consumer tests. He says, as good as is just probing 162 00:10:34.879 --> 00:10:39.000 for preference in the consumer panel. If statistically your beer 163 00:10:39.159 --> 00:10:42.440 is as good as the regular beer, you achieve your goal. 164 00:10:43.039 --> 00:10:47.240 Craft brewers would let's just say bag to differ their nerds. 165 00:10:47.600 --> 00:10:50.039 They make what they want to drink, whether that means 166 00:10:50.080 --> 00:10:54.759 a classic British stout or aged sour beer fermented with ambient, 167 00:10:55.159 --> 00:10:59.120 funky yeast, nittered with hops that taste like bong water, 168 00:10:59.519 --> 00:11:03.919 and fill with a dash of siracha. They are making, 169 00:11:04.120 --> 00:11:08.360 and I say this in all sincerity, drinkable art ab 170 00:11:08.559 --> 00:11:11.840 Imbev is playing a very different game. Its NA beers 171 00:11:11.879 --> 00:11:14.879 can't be merely good. They have to be widely appealing, 172 00:11:15.519 --> 00:11:19.960 chemically stable, even amid the vagaries of international shipping, consistent 173 00:11:20.240 --> 00:11:24.320 year after year. When it comes to non alcoholic beer, 174 00:11:24.360 --> 00:11:27.320 that's really hard to do. Sure, ninety five percent of 175 00:11:27.320 --> 00:11:30.480 a beer is not alcohol, but that last five percent 176 00:11:30.799 --> 00:11:34.840 has always been the obstacle between a premium, scalable NA 177 00:11:34.879 --> 00:11:38.559 beer and wet breakfast cereal. Most of what we call 178 00:11:38.639 --> 00:11:41.879 flavor is actually smell. The tongue is a blunt detector 179 00:11:41.919 --> 00:11:46.279 of salt, sour, bitter, sweet, and the meaty flavor of umami, 180 00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:50.559 but the nose senses a far more subtle spectrum. Alcohol 181 00:11:50.679 --> 00:11:53.720 lights up all of that plus more. It is an 182 00:11:53.759 --> 00:11:57.480 aroma molecule, a flavor and a smell. It also triggers 183 00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:00.519 heat receptors in the mouth, and it has an unctious 184 00:12:00.799 --> 00:12:05.120 mouthfeel what a conswer might call body. So its absence 185 00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:07.960 leaves of big coal. Adding grains like oats and rice 186 00:12:08.279 --> 00:12:11.600 can amp up mouthfeel. But from the beginning of their 187 00:12:11.639 --> 00:12:16.039 foray a decade ago, the av Imbev researchers have been 188 00:12:16.080 --> 00:12:20.000 determined to stick with their beer's original ingredients. As a 189 00:12:20.039 --> 00:12:24.080 first step in backling over the gaps, they tweaked their 190 00:12:24.120 --> 00:12:29.039 brewing process to preserve long chain carbohydrates called dextrins. They're 191 00:12:29.080 --> 00:12:33.519 nearly tasteless, but they add viscosity to get alcohol out. 192 00:12:33.600 --> 00:12:37.679 The Shooter's team experimented with a variety of emerging techniques, 193 00:12:37.960 --> 00:12:41.320 all of which required expensive new equipment and lots of 194 00:12:41.440 --> 00:12:44.399 energy and water just to produce results that always lacked 195 00:12:44.440 --> 00:12:49.799 a certain genese qua. Except scientists do know quaw. Dissolved 196 00:12:50.039 --> 00:12:53.600 within the alcohol are hundreds of other beery flavor molecules, 197 00:12:53.960 --> 00:12:59.320 from the banana smell of isoamyl acetate to the Clovish 198 00:12:59.440 --> 00:13:06.120 spicing nsas of four vinyl guayacole. These volatile aromatic molecules 199 00:13:06.120 --> 00:13:10.279 give beer its flavor, and many are secondary metabolites that 200 00:13:10.519 --> 00:13:14.840 yeast produces during fermentation. Remove the alcohol and you remove 201 00:13:14.919 --> 00:13:18.799 them too. Only one solution was available add them back 202 00:13:18.840 --> 00:13:23.279 in afterward. Ruwers working on na beers squirted natural and 203 00:13:23.399 --> 00:13:26.279 artificial flavors into the products to cover a lack of 204 00:13:26.320 --> 00:13:31.120 flavor or mask their faults. More intense styles could pull 205 00:13:31.159 --> 00:13:34.799 this off with more panache, the toasty slash coffee aromas 206 00:13:34.799 --> 00:13:38.399 of a stout like guinness or the tropical fruit happiness 207 00:13:38.399 --> 00:13:42.080 of modern India pale ales. We can add other components 208 00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:44.919 that make it have more mouth feel. We can add 209 00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:49.879 alcohol adjacent chemicals, as Scott la Fontaine, a food chemist 210 00:13:49.919 --> 00:13:53.320 at the University of Arkansas who studies beer, that's where 211 00:13:53.399 --> 00:13:57.759 understanding fermentation and yeast biochemistry are essential to creating a 212 00:13:57.759 --> 00:14:02.159 beer like adjacent product. Attain's research suggests that the more 213 00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:05.840 a beer tastes like sodapop, the more Americans will like it. 214 00:14:06.360 --> 00:14:10.000 Not this American, for the record, And sure, the best 215 00:14:10.279 --> 00:14:14.120 beer adjacent products can be quite good. Not in my experience, 216 00:14:14.200 --> 00:14:16.759 they lose something as they sit in a glass. They 217 00:14:16.799 --> 00:14:18.720 taste good at the top, fine in the middle, and 218 00:14:18.799 --> 00:14:22.879 then well, I rarely finish them. Without the alcohol matrix, 219 00:14:23.120 --> 00:14:27.480 these flavors fizz away more quickly. The Shooter's team decided 220 00:14:27.600 --> 00:14:32.519 on a different approach. Yeas eat sugar and excrete alcohol 221 00:14:32.559 --> 00:14:36.279 and all those other flavors secondary metabolites. But what if 222 00:14:36.320 --> 00:14:39.960 a yeast made only those other flavors. A b Mbev 223 00:14:40.600 --> 00:14:43.440 needed a bacon tree. Luckily, the world has a lot 224 00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:47.159 of yeasts. The Lagger style beers, for instance, light, clear 225 00:14:47.200 --> 00:14:51.399 and popular, like Budweiser art made with S. Sara Visai, 226 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:56.080 but with a different species, the hybrid s pastorianas. This 227 00:14:56.200 --> 00:14:59.600 is why breweries are so careful with their special yeast strains. 228 00:15:00.080 --> 00:15:04.480 When strains reproduce, they mutate, so brewers keep their yeast 229 00:15:04.519 --> 00:15:07.279 frozen and only scrape out tiny samples at a time. 230 00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:12.320 The original bast batch must never break containment. For me, 231 00:15:12.440 --> 00:15:14.879 the yeast is the soul of the beer. The shooter says, 232 00:15:15.240 --> 00:15:17.240 if you want to make a Stella Artois, you need 233 00:15:17.279 --> 00:15:20.320 to have the Stella artois yeast. The same goes for 234 00:15:20.399 --> 00:15:23.360 any of the other beers in the A b Imbev line. 235 00:15:23.919 --> 00:15:28.679 With human nudging, yeasts have evolved into wolfish apex predators 236 00:15:28.679 --> 00:15:31.759 that feast on the range of sugars we extract from grains, 237 00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:36.919 from smaller, simple, simpler ones like glucose and fructose, to bigger, 238 00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:42.600 more complex ones like maltose and malto trios. Brewing yeasts 239 00:15:42.679 --> 00:15:46.720 eat them all, but more demure species and strains exists too. 240 00:15:47.320 --> 00:15:51.039 These Pomeranians of the yeast world can't handle the big sugars. 241 00:15:51.320 --> 00:15:55.200 They still ferment and they create interesting aromatic molecules, but 242 00:15:55.279 --> 00:15:58.879 they produce far less alcohol. The shooters team tried one 243 00:15:58.879 --> 00:16:02.799 of these alt yeasts back in twenty seventeen, a yeast 244 00:16:02.799 --> 00:16:06.960 from the genus Pichia. During my visit, the shooter offered 245 00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:09.559 me a small plastic cup filled with the result, a 246 00:16:09.639 --> 00:16:13.519 sweet Beeri like liquid with strong notes of apple now 247 00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:17.240 and later candy. It was the wrong yeast. The na 248 00:16:17.360 --> 00:16:19.480 yeast of the future would be just as important to 249 00:16:19.519 --> 00:16:22.519 a b imbev as the one that makes stella, but 250 00:16:22.639 --> 00:16:25.360 the shooter and his team didn't have the background to 251 00:16:25.399 --> 00:16:28.639 find it. He needed help, someone with a uniquely tailored 252 00:16:28.879 --> 00:16:35.559 biochemical expertise. He needed a yeast whisperer. Kevin ver Streppen 253 00:16:35.799 --> 00:16:37.679 is the director of a lab with a name that's 254 00:16:37.720 --> 00:16:39.879 going to make you wish you chose a different major 255 00:16:39.919 --> 00:16:43.840 in college, the k u Leuven Institute for Beer Research. 256 00:16:44.399 --> 00:16:47.480 He didn't set out to pioneer beer flavor, pursuing a 257 00:16:47.480 --> 00:16:51.159 biological engineering degree with notions of delivering the next world 258 00:16:51.320 --> 00:16:54.559 changing vaccine. He eventually made his way to the South 259 00:16:54.559 --> 00:16:59.879 Africa lab of Itzach Pretorius, a geneticist studying yeast, specifically 260 00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:03.679 wine making yeast. Long story short, I loved it Astreppan 261 00:17:03.759 --> 00:17:06.240 says a student in the wine lab learning how to 262 00:17:06.279 --> 00:17:10.119 taste wine. That experience also gave Verstreppin his first sense 263 00:17:10.160 --> 00:17:13.960 of beer making as a biotechnology. So outwent by plans 264 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:16.799 to come up with a cancer vaccine. He went back 265 00:17:16.839 --> 00:17:19.440 to k U Leuven and got a pH d in 266 00:17:19.640 --> 00:17:24.039 Applied biological sciences with a minor in beer. After stints 267 00:17:24.039 --> 00:17:28.920 at MIT and Harvard, where Verstreppin co created a widely 268 00:17:29.319 --> 00:17:32.920 wildly popular freshman seminar that used beer and brewing to 269 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:37.720 teach basic biochemistry and bioengineering, Leuven offered him a job 270 00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:42.559 studying how yeiest's work from brewing beer to manufacturing pharmaceuticals. 271 00:17:43.039 --> 00:17:47.119 No one is doing more to link beer's sociocultural history 272 00:17:47.200 --> 00:17:50.680 with its high tech, non alcoholic future. Much of the 273 00:17:50.720 --> 00:17:54.920 equipment in Verstreppin's lab is designed to help understand yieese's 274 00:17:55.039 --> 00:18:00.400 chemical outputs. Refrigerator sized analytic engines can discern a roma 275 00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:04.759 and flavors with molecular precision. A seven foot tall, translucent 276 00:18:04.839 --> 00:18:09.279 cabinet contains a miniaturezed assembly line bristling with robot arms 277 00:18:09.599 --> 00:18:14.480 dabbing at tiny dishes, each executing thousands of tiny chemical 278 00:18:14.480 --> 00:18:17.640 reactions all at once. Firstreppan, tall and lean like a 279 00:18:17.640 --> 00:18:21.680 cyclist and wearing a vantgarde eyeglass frames, is an expert 280 00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:24.240 at cracking yets open to see what they can do. 281 00:18:24.920 --> 00:18:27.680 The Shooter's team tasked him with finding a yeast with 282 00:18:27.720 --> 00:18:31.119 a very specific set of skills, and back at his lab, 283 00:18:31.240 --> 00:18:34.400 he had a freezer full of a thousand different kinds 284 00:18:34.400 --> 00:18:38.640 of yeast, a genetic library of untapped potential abilities. The 285 00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:44.759 lab's high throughput screening technologies could flip through them like 286 00:18:44.799 --> 00:18:47.880 an old rolodex, looking for the right skill sets. You 287 00:18:47.920 --> 00:18:51.440 don't have to know the underlying genetic mechanisms. Ver Streppan says, 288 00:18:51.640 --> 00:18:54.839 you just have to find good parents. Anyone who follows 289 00:18:54.839 --> 00:18:58.720 horse racing where the Westminster Kettel Club understands breeding but 290 00:18:58.920 --> 00:19:02.279 in horses and dogs or even barley. Generating traits you 291 00:19:02.359 --> 00:19:06.000 want and sifting out those you don't can take years, 292 00:19:06.359 --> 00:19:09.359 not yease, they pick up new genes as casually as 293 00:19:09.359 --> 00:19:13.480 we might change shirts, and they breed fast. Consider how 294 00:19:13.559 --> 00:19:18.039 quickly a sour dough starter overflows its jar. Combine strains 295 00:19:18.079 --> 00:19:21.359 with interesting traits, grow them, test them. If you want 296 00:19:21.400 --> 00:19:24.599 one that's resistant to high temperatures, just pull them all 297 00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:28.640 into a hot bath. One survives. Guess what, that's your champion. 298 00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:33.000 Erristreppin says, with flavor, you do a small fermentation and 299 00:19:33.079 --> 00:19:36.480 measure the flavor components, or do a tasting, which is 300 00:19:36.519 --> 00:19:40.960 more precise. So that's what we do. Our Struppen's team 301 00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:44.000 started out with more than a thousand candidates. Weeding out 302 00:19:44.039 --> 00:19:46.680 the ones that still made too much alcohol got the 303 00:19:46.720 --> 00:19:49.559 list down to about twenty. Like a lot of wild yeats. 304 00:19:49.720 --> 00:19:53.559 Most of the survivors also produced fenels, molecules that, depending 305 00:19:53.599 --> 00:19:57.039 on your childhood, remind you of either dirt or band aids. 306 00:19:57.799 --> 00:20:01.720 Phenolic character is typically something we except in a specialty beer, 307 00:20:01.759 --> 00:20:04.640 but not in a logger. The shooter says they cut 308 00:20:04.680 --> 00:20:08.920 those two that left them with just two candidates. Unfortunately, 309 00:20:08.920 --> 00:20:11.920 one manifested a tendency to kill any other yeast it 310 00:20:11.960 --> 00:20:15.160 came into contact with, thanks to its acquisition of a 311 00:20:15.240 --> 00:20:19.799 viral gene for a viscous toxin. That wouldn't matter unless 312 00:20:19.839 --> 00:20:22.920 the new yeast got into a legacy batch. But since 313 00:20:22.920 --> 00:20:25.319 they planned to make non alcoholic beer in the same 314 00:20:25.359 --> 00:20:28.680 breweries as alcoholic ones, they'd have to eliminate the trait 315 00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:33.240 they couldn't risk unleashing a serial killer. After a few 316 00:20:33.440 --> 00:20:37.480 final rounds of heat treating to stamp out the toxin gene, 317 00:20:37.640 --> 00:20:42.680 the champ emerged an ancient sarah VCI collected from plants 318 00:20:42.680 --> 00:20:47.200 in Southeast Asia, yeast's evolutionary point of origin. It had 319 00:20:47.240 --> 00:20:51.920 a stable phenotype if ate. It ate simple sugar, but 320 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:55.839 didn't consume maltose, and so it made only the tensiest 321 00:20:56.000 --> 00:20:59.440 abound of alcohol. It wasn't phenolic. They didn't want to 322 00:20:59.519 --> 00:21:03.000 murder a yeast. As a last hurdle, the Shooter's team 323 00:21:03.079 --> 00:21:06.319 took the yeast to a b Imbev's brewery in Mexico, 324 00:21:06.680 --> 00:21:10.039 home to a massive fermenter capable of brewing over three 325 00:21:10.119 --> 00:21:13.359 hundred thousand gallons at a time. Flavor is fine, but 326 00:21:13.480 --> 00:21:17.519 it had to scale. When you make fifteen billion gallons 327 00:21:17.519 --> 00:21:20.440 of beer a year, there's no room for a dilettante. 328 00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:25.039 This year's delivered as advertised, the company nicknamed it Smart 329 00:21:25.079 --> 00:21:29.319 East and started brewing. Belgian beer is very traditional, but 330 00:21:29.440 --> 00:21:34.400 the tradition is constant experimentation. This is the point Ivan 331 00:21:34.519 --> 00:21:37.240 Debates wants me to absorb as we sit in the 332 00:21:37.319 --> 00:21:41.559 pub attached to its brewery, Roserie de las Sin, on 333 00:21:41.759 --> 00:21:44.839 an industrial stretch of the Brussels Canal near the trendy 334 00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.680 gar Maratin. Designed by Debts and its business partner. It's 335 00:21:49.680 --> 00:21:53.920 a concrete walled beer cathedral with giant windows showcasing all 336 00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:56.799 the steel tanks and pipes. Next door, we're sipping a 337 00:21:56.839 --> 00:22:01.920 bier called Pettibruba, his version of below alcohol brew at 338 00:22:01.960 --> 00:22:05.279 two point five percent alcohol by volume. Its right, hoppy 339 00:22:05.359 --> 00:22:08.359 and cheerful. I did that selfishly to save my liver. 340 00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:11.920 Debetz says, I never worked so hard on a recipe 341 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:15.960 in my life. As Tibet's tells it, Belgian beer has 342 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:20.319 always refracted styles from around the continent. In fifteen sixteen, 343 00:22:20.359 --> 00:22:24.880 Bavaria enacted what was effectively an early national food safety law, 344 00:22:25.480 --> 00:22:31.640 the Rhine Heiscobote or Purity Order, mandating that beer, a 345 00:22:31.720 --> 00:22:35.720 critically important regional food stuff, be made only with water, barley, 346 00:22:35.759 --> 00:22:41.119 and hops. Belgium combined this Bavarian rigidity with English facility 347 00:22:41.319 --> 00:22:47.359 into lower alcohol, sessionable bruise and Southern styles full of wine. 348 00:22:47.480 --> 00:22:52.319 Like esters. The oldest Belgian beers, like the Lambics, relied 349 00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:58.200 on spontaneous fermentations using ambient yeasts with funkier, weirder flavors. 350 00:22:58.680 --> 00:23:02.440 When training introduced in ingredients like annis coriander or the 351 00:23:02.480 --> 00:23:06.480 peel of the bitter cacao orange, Belgians threw them into 352 00:23:06.480 --> 00:23:09.480 the mix. It makes sense, in other words, that Belgians 353 00:23:09.519 --> 00:23:12.240 would be working on the non alcoholic future of beer. 354 00:23:12.640 --> 00:23:16.920 Brewing innovation is inextricable from the culture. It's the home 355 00:23:16.960 --> 00:23:22.880 of meccas like the San Sistus Abbey, whose West Veretrin 356 00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:27.079 twelve is by some lights the best beer period In 357 00:23:27.160 --> 00:23:30.279 the city of Bruges. A brewery founded in fifteen sixty 358 00:23:30.279 --> 00:23:34.400 five constructed a two mile underground beer pipeline from its 359 00:23:34.440 --> 00:23:38.160 brewery to its bottling plant so that its trucks wouldn't 360 00:23:38.160 --> 00:23:41.359 disturb the medieval downtown. You have to respect a country 361 00:23:41.400 --> 00:23:46.480 where every individual brew has its own specially shaped glass. Alcohol, 362 00:23:46.599 --> 00:23:50.200 tax policy, fashion and new science can all redirect the 363 00:23:50.279 --> 00:23:54.319 development of merging styles. A sociology of taste as Tibets 364 00:23:54.400 --> 00:23:57.799 elegantly puts it, but he worries that non alcoholic bruise 365 00:23:57.839 --> 00:24:01.720 will always be missing a certain something. The techniques are way, way, 366 00:24:01.799 --> 00:24:05.480 way better than even fifteen years ago, he admits. Still, 367 00:24:05.480 --> 00:24:09.039 I believe the base product is not so appealing, and 368 00:24:09.119 --> 00:24:13.440 yet the run away success of the non alcoholic craft 369 00:24:13.480 --> 00:24:17.720 brewer Athletic suggests that may just be the connoisseur ship talking. 370 00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:21.359 Not only is Athletic the biggest NA brewer in the US, 371 00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:25.960 it's the country's eighteenth largest brewer overall, with twenty twenty 372 00:24:25.960 --> 00:24:29.559 four sales of one hundred thirty million dollars and a 373 00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:34.559 valuation of eight hundred million dollars. One big reason is 374 00:24:34.559 --> 00:24:37.480 that people actually like to drink it. Athletic is notably 375 00:24:37.599 --> 00:24:40.880 close mouthed about how it makes its beer, unusual in 376 00:24:40.920 --> 00:24:44.519 an industry known for co operation and openness, and it's 377 00:24:44.519 --> 00:24:47.920 still a munchkin compared to a b imbev, but it's 378 00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:52.640 persuasive proof of market and as an added economic inducements. 379 00:24:53.119 --> 00:24:56.920 It's legal for brewers to advertise NA brands alongside popular 380 00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:01.440 sports like Formula one, raising appeal to the mainstream in 381 00:25:01.519 --> 00:25:05.759 ways that even the King of Beers can't smart yeast 382 00:25:05.839 --> 00:25:09.119 may solve a specific corporate problem, but the idea, the 383 00:25:09.160 --> 00:25:12.200 concept of new yeasts for new beers might transform the 384 00:25:12.200 --> 00:25:15.680 way we think about flavor writ large. Even with all 385 00:25:15.720 --> 00:25:19.640 the high tech analytic and sensory equipment in beer Streppan's lab, 386 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:23.480 assessing something as complex as beer requires the nose and 387 00:25:23.559 --> 00:25:27.720 tongue of a trained human expert, some incapable of describing 388 00:25:27.759 --> 00:25:35.200 its characteristic aromas with poetic precision using a sheared, quantifiable vocabulary. 389 00:25:35.480 --> 00:25:40.839 Where this team term means that smell toasted caramel, grapefruit rind, 390 00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:44.960 sour dough bread to define the various distinct sensations in 391 00:25:45.039 --> 00:25:48.359 a single sip of beer, that's not me. I'm just 392 00:25:48.440 --> 00:25:51.480 a rider who has consumed a lot of beer. Nevertheless, 393 00:25:51.519 --> 00:25:53.759 for a Strepan has invited me to sit in on 394 00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:57.359 an evaluation of a couple of the candidate's yeasts he's 395 00:25:57.400 --> 00:26:00.839 working on it's time to drink beer for signs. His 396 00:26:00.960 --> 00:26:04.119 team tucks me into a private, studied carol like one 397 00:26:04.119 --> 00:26:07.359 you'd find in a library. I'm served ambd er amber 398 00:26:07.400 --> 00:26:10.160 glasses of beer with numbers affixed to them and a 399 00:26:10.240 --> 00:26:14.839 sheaf of worksheets that gives me sat flashbacks. It's harder 400 00:26:14.920 --> 00:26:18.920 than it sounds. Both beers tast like well beer, but 401 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:21.799