First Yeast Gene Discovered to Improve Beer Froth

Scientists discovered the first gene CFG1 from beer yeast (Saccaromyces pastorianus) that is involved in forming foam, which could improve the smell and eye appeal of "the world's favorite alcoholic beverage". Tomas Villa from University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, together with other scientists reported the results of their study in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. According to them, proteins from barley and beer yeast are the primary factors involved in forming beer foam, wherein the proteins gather around carbon dioxide gas to form bubbles in the foam. Their study showed that the proteins from the yeast stabilize the foam, preventing the bubbles from disappearing early.

Read the original article at http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=223&content_id=CNBP_031118&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=d13f8e70-53c6-43fb-912d-b160d69b3235. The research article is available at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf3027974.