Tennessee Brewers Explore the Potential of Wild Yeast
In partnership with: Tennessee Department of Agriculture
Yeast might make you think of bread and beer, but wild yeast is opening a world of opportunities. Whether you’re baking bread or brewing a batch of beer, every recipe begins with a list of essential ingredients. The quality of those ingredients is critical to the flavor of whatever you’re making. But for Tennessee brewers, there is another important consideration as well – can we get these simple ingredients locally?
In fact, a recent survey of Tennessee Craft Brewers Guild members indicates that the majority already use some Tennessee-grown products in their beers and that more than 90% believe having additional sources for locally grown products would be highly valued by brewers and consumers.
The Farm to Tap initiative, a partnership between the Tennessee Department of Agriculture and the Guild, encourages and facilitates the use of local products in the beer-brewing process.
See more: Farm to Tap Program Links Farmers to Brewers to Make Truly Tennessee Products
“Brewers are committed to ensuring not only great flavor in their products, but consistency in replicating those flavors,” says Mike Brown, a business consultant with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture and one of the initiative’s partners. “While the shortness of our fruit-growing season doesn’t allow us to supply peaches or other fruits year-round for brewers, we brainstormed about what kind of product we could provide that would enhance flavor and be consistently available. One of those efforts is exploring wild yeast.”
Wild Yeast, Please
Brown explains that wild yeast is everywhere in nature, and like bacteria, some yeasts can impart good flavors while others do not. The goal of the initiative was to identify local wild yeasts that would allow brewers to create a distinctive product with another locally sourced ingredient.
See more: What’s the Difference Between Baking Soda, Baking Powder and Yeast?
To do that, they engaged Jeff Mello of Bootleg Biology, a Nashville-based yeast lab for brewers, to gather wild yeast, incubate it in the brewing process and sample to determine which yeast provides the best taste for beer.
“I taught myself to isolate yeast using online resources and later took a microbiology course at a local community college,” Mello says. “Bootleg Biology began as The Local Yeast Project, which is an ongoing attempt to capture a wild yeast from every ZIP code in the U.S.”
After the jump-start with an interest in wild yeast, Bootleg Biology evolved to be the full-service yeast lab it is today, selling mostly traditional brewing yeasts to craft breweries and providing quality control testing services.
“If you want to make a truly local beer, you’ve got to have a local yeast,” Mello says. “And with that local yeast, you can make a beer with a taste and aroma that is unique to where you live or travel.”
See more: How Tennessee Farmers, Brewers and Distillers are Working Together
Brown says that’s what the Farm to Tap initiative aims to provide for the state’s brewing industry.
“Our brewers are looking for ways to differentiate their product, and we’re committed to helping them,” Brown says. “The Local Yeast Project is part of the effort to expand the Tennessee-grown products that enhance the brewing process. That’s a win for brewers and their customers.”
To learn more about the Local Yeast Project, visit bootlegbiology.com/local-yeast-project.