Scientists Make the First New Lager Yeasts in Centuries

"Lagers are boring. When you pop a can of lager beer, you taste the product of closely related strains of Saccharomyces pastorianus. Their genetic variety pales in comparison to the small but diverse group of yeasts used for making ale and wine, which pump out vastly different metabolic by-products and a wide range of flavors. In fact, lagers have looked and tasted much the same for hundreds of years because breeding strains with new brewing characteristics and flavors has proved difficult; the hybrids were effectively sterile. But that is about to change."

Saccharomyces eubayanus

See Scientific American Article for the rest on "Lager lovers can now officially raise a toast because Gibson and his colleagues recently logged the success of re-creating the ancient fling between S. cerevisiae and S. eubayanus."