Remember the Jurassic Park Movies? They extracted some DNA from some dinosaur blood ingested by a mosquito that was encased in some ancient amber. They cloned a few really nasty critters from the past and well, you know the story. It's all fiction, but it made for a really good movie plot. The concept, however, is not as far fetched as you might imagine. Amber (which is fossilized tree sap) is real and and bugs and other objects are often found entombed within it.
If they encase visible bugs, than it stands to reason it also trapped invisible (to the naked eye) bugs. In this case - yeast. And to be more specific, ita 45 million year old strain of Saccharomyces, The same family of yeasts that are usually used in beer making.
The yeast was actually trapped in the gooey tree resin during the Eocene epoch, 20 million years after the last dinosaur perished. High temperatures and warm oceans created a balmy environment throughout the Earth, with palm trees growing in what’s now Alaska. And, fortuitously, the yeast is an ancient relative of today’s Saccharomyces, or brewer’s yeast. With 1,500 known species of yeast, a far less useful variety might easily have been captured in the resin.
Ancient brewer's yeast? You know someone had to try it and they did. The first batch was a home brew made for the cast party for one of the Jurassic Park movies. There is now a commercial brewer using the yeast to brew beer appropriately called Fossile Fuels Brewery in Manteca, CA.
I don't find it rated on Beer Advocate or Ratebeer.com. It probably isn't that well known, but I'd sure like to give it a go!
Cheers!
VW
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