Cheers To Christopher Columbus For Bringing Us Lager [Headlines]
Ever wonder who discovered the yeast we use to brew lager came from? Argentina. And it was Christopher Columbus who brought it to us.
If you like lager beer, you have Christopher Columbus to thank for it. The long-standing mystery of where the yeast that makes cold-temperature lager beer fermentation possible has been solved, in the beech forests of Patagonia in Argentina.
Humans have been making beer for a very long time. The first actual evidence we have is barley beer 6,000 years ago in Sumeria, which was probably somewhat like a thin, fermented, drinkable gruel. In Europe, the same yeast types used to make bread and wine were used to make ale-type beers, a process that was well-established by the Middle Ages. Elizabeth Weise/USA Today.
Image by Bernt Rostad via Flickr.