Brewery Fermentations

Abstract

The making of beer is one of the oldest crafts known to man and it is therefore surprising that the nature of fermentation was not understood unt.1 the latter half of the nineteenth century. Yeast was for long regarded as an undesirable scum which had to be disposed of as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, in the seventeenth century at least, some brewers were reusing yeast although failing to understand the significance of their practice. C. Cagniard-Latour expressed the belief in 1836 that fermentation of sugar was due to vital activity of yeast. In the following year, T. Schwann recognized the fungal nature of yeast and gave the organism the name Zucherpilz, which translates to Saccharomyces [1].