45 Million Year Old Brew

I'd love to get a taste of this beer some day.

From Wired...

The dish contains a variant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, known in culinary circles as baker's or brewer's yeast. But Cano didn't get this from Whole Foods. Back in 1995, he extracted it from a 45 million-year-old fossil. The microorganisms had lain dormant since the Eocene epoch, a time when Australia split off from Antarctica and modern mammals first appeared. Then Cano brought the yeast back to life.

This reanimation of an ancient life form was a breakthrough, a discovery so shocking that the scientific community initially refused to believe it. It changed our understanding of what microorganisms are capable of. It also gave the Cal Poly researcher a brief taste of fame. For a while, he thought it might make him rich. It didn't. Now, just when it seemed his babies would be forgotten, Cano has found a way to share them with the world.

In March 2006, chip Lambert happened to meet a guy named Peter Hackett at a ski resort in Lake Tahoe, California. Hackett is a Northern California pub owner and brewer. Before long, the conversation turned to ancient yeast. "It started as a very casual, noncommittal, you-must-be-out-of-your-mind conversation," Hackett recalls. "He told me the story of how Cano revived the yeast, how it resembled brewer's yeast. And then he said, 'Wouldn't it be interesting if we could make beer with it?'"

I wonder how the yeast does in breadmaking. Hmmm.