To Vrai or Not To Vrai - Another White Labs Controversy?

The Short Version

Brewing practices in both home and commercial breweries have undergone somewhat of a revolution over the past decade, leading to a cohort of brewers who approach brewing from a much more technical & microbiological perspective. As a direct consequence of this, some commercial yeast products have been revealed to be other than what the manufacturers have stated - in at least some cases, with the manufacturer themselves being unaware that their product was a yeast/bacteria different from what they believed they had. In this blog post we reveal that the yeast sold by White Labs as Brettanomyces vrai (WLP648) - ironically a yeast mis-identified previously by the same manufacturer - is, in fact, a blend of two different yeasts - both are Brettanomyces bruxellensis, but are separate strains...although strains which appear to have evolved from a recent common ancestor.

Some Background

Brewing practices have changed dramatically over the past decade, with procedures such as sour worting, wild captures, and home/brewery isolated yeasts going from rare experiments to commonplace brewing practices. This change in brewing practices has led to some issues with commercially sourced yeasts - as one example, the growth of practices such as sour worting have revealed yeast-contamination issues in packaged "pure" strains of Lactobacillus. Similarly, the more microbiology-centric practices of home and commercial brewers has led to some unexpected revelations, including identification of "Brettanomyces trois" as a unusually flavourful strain of conventional brewers yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). I was part of that effort, and the results of my and others work in identifying this yeast are the subject of a previous post. According to the manufacturer, this mis-identification was due to a chance contamination of "Brett trois" by this strain of Sacc, leading to the release of the "correct" strain of Brettanomyces, under the 'vrai' (French for 'true') strain name.

But is the strain name accurate - is this truly a pure strain of Brettanomyces? Most of us assumed so, even though this strain shows some characteristics when used as a pure culture for primary fermentation that run contrary to how most Brettanomyces behave when used for primary fermentation. When used in primary fermentation, most Brettanomyces act much like Saccharomyces - they rapidly ferment the wort, usually leave some residual sugars behind, and don't evolve over ageing as much as beers do when Brettanomyces are added during secondary fermentation - e.g. there is a lack of phenol production and super-attenuation. Beers brewed with WLP648 do ferment out fairly quickly, but tend to be more highly attenuated than beers brewed with other strains of Brettanomyces as the primary yeast. In addition, beers brewed with WLP648 also show some development during ageing similar to that of beers with Brettanomyces added to secondary - i.e. emergence of phenolic "funk", and additional attenuation of the beer. So is WLP648 simply a more aggressive Brettanomyces than other common brewing strains, or is something else going on?

To our knowledge, it was assumed by other brewers that Brett vrai was simply a somewhat more attenuative strain of Brett - that is - until my friend and brewing collaborator (and co-author of this blog post) Devin streaked WLP648 on a wort-agar plate. Initially, the plate appeared as one would expect of a pure culture - all colonies on the plate appearing similar in size, shape and colouration. But over a longer incubation time smaller colonies began to appear between the larger colonies, leading us to speculate that there may be a second strain of yeast in WLP648.

Using a combination of classical microbiology, microscopy, gene sequencing and test batches, Devin and I explored the two strains of yeast present in WLP648, demonstrating that Brett vrai contains two unique strains of Brettanomyces bruxellensis, strains which share a relatively recent common ancestor, but are otherwise quite different in their morphology and brewing characteristics.

Experimental details can be found below the fold.

Fact of Fiction - Can Pathogens Survive in Beer? The RDWHAHB Edition

Its time for the third instalment of my pseudo-series Can Pathogens Survive in Beer (Part 1 - of course they can, Part 2 - Moulds). To summarise parts I and II, yes there are a number of pathogens that survive in beer, and yes, moulds can release poisonous mycotoxins into beer, but generally speaking proper sanitation and controlling your brewing environment can eliminate these risks.

Today's edition is a little different; my previous posts get "cited" a lot by people who seem to have been scared by my posts away from testing new organisms as potential brewing bugs. As one example, a few months ago at Milk the Funk a discussion on the potential use of Lachancea fermentati (a lactic-acid producing yeast) to make a "single organism" sour-beer. The interest readily split into two groups after a case report was found of a patient in Texas who suffered fungemia (blood infection) with Lachancea fermentati. This led many people who at first were anxious to try brewing with this yeast to become fearful about even letting it near their brewery. Yet I, and a few others, made beers with this yeast...and we're all still here and no one got sick. So what is going on? Why would I (a microbiologist by trade) risk making a beer with a known pathogen?

The answer, as always, is below the fold...

A small step...maybe

After a month of bad press the "owner" of our major alcohol distribution system - e.g. the government - finally appears to have noticed that there is a problem. Although whether they perceive the problem as being an unfair system that increases costs while decreasing selection, or merely one of bad press, is yet to be seen.

But at least our Premier, Kathleen Wynn, has said that the system is unfair and "will be changed".

Of course the big brewers are crying like babies, and making up stories about how competition is somehow going to lead to prices going up by ~15%...

The Conspiracy - Revealed

This is another of my Ontario-centric rants about beer distribution in my province - so my non-local readers may want to pass this post buy (unless you want to see just how crazy things here are). In Ontario beer is distributed via two government-maintained channels. A government owned/run LCBO chain of stores, and a foreign-owned beer monopoly (the beer store) whose monopoly is maintained via government fiat.

The system is flawed beyond belief; the beer has a secret agreement with the LCBO that gives it a near monopoly on beer sales; the LCBO is limited to some pretty strange rules when it comes to the selling of the beer. And the beer store takes advantage of their position - by using a series of extremely expensive "listing fees" the beer store ensures that small brewers cannot complete with the brewers who own the beers store (InBev, Saporro, Molson-Coors). It costs $77,000 to have the beer store carry a single product in a single format across all their stores. Meaning if a brewery wants to sell the same beer in a 6-pack and 12-pack format, it'll cost them $154,000. Obviously, those fees are deadly to small breweries, and all-but-prevents the distribution of 1-off and seasonal brews that are the lifeblood of most craft brewers. And even with this power, the owners still engage in underhanded marketing to further suppress the craft brewing industry.

The big mystery for beer consumers has been why the LCBO doesn't compete in any meaningful fashion with the beer store. There is no legal limitations that would prevent this, and yet the LCBO limits itself to selling singles and the odd six-pack of beer. In some ways the LCBO is more open to craft brewers - but in place of exhoberant listing fees, the LCBO instead has a series of asinine labelling rules and an excessively slow and convoluted listing process. That aside, the question remains why doesn't the LCBO complete.

The answer has finally been provided by The Star, thanks to a whistleblower. The leaked document shows that the LCBO and beer store have a secret non-competition agreement meant to keep the LCBO from competing with the beer store (with no apparent gain for the LCBO). Indeed, a former head of the LCBO has complained (without revealing details) about how this agreement was forced on the LCBO, apparently by government ministers.

Sounds fishy...if not outright corrupt.

At least now we know why the LCBO doesn't compete with the beer store and offer a meaningful second option to craft brewers. Whether this revelation will mean anything in terms of reform (or even better, outright privatization) is yet to be seen. But at least the agreement is now out there under public scrutiny.

Documentary - Straight-up: The Issue of Alcohol in Ontario

This video is probably not of much interest to many of my readers. But for those of you in Ontario, its worth the hour of your life needed to go through it.

This video, originally streamed on Mom & Hops, is the product of a kickstarter campaign by Peter Lenardon and A.J. Wykes, and explores the alcohol distribution system here in Ontario and how it is gamed to ensure that new market entrants - e.g. local craft brewers - have the smallest chance of success.

The video features interviews with a number of Ontario brewers, discussing how the existing system which limits their ability to distribute (while not imposing the same limits on the big brewers) negatively impacts their ability to grow, reach their customers, and compete with the big brewers.