Monday, January 5, 2009

U of Saskatchewan student completing PhD in how to save beer from going bad

I wasted my university education on computer science and astrophysics.




Monique Haakensen is not just another university student who claims to have spent her academic years occupied by beer.



Haakensen has helped discover three new methods of detecting beer-spoiling bacteria, including a DNA-based technique, that has big breweries around the globe hoisting pints in celebration.



Breweries usually have to keep batches of beer for two to three months to make sure they haven't spoiled before cases are shipped out on trucks to liquor stores, says Haakensen.



"What we've done here is, by using DNA methods, we can actually figure out in a matter of one to two days if that beer will spoil," Haakensen says.


Read the whole story at Yahoo! Canada News.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Keep beer for two or three months to make sure it's not bad?? That sounds like a lot of hooey to me.

Richard Stueven said...

Packaging breweries that are concerned about their beers' shelf life will routinely keep samples for up to a year. Their quality control program involves pulling a stored sample after 30, 60, 90, and 120 days, and every two or three months thereafter to see how well the beer keeps. Separate samples may be held in a refrigerator, at room temperature, and even at 100+°F to see how they hold up under different storage conditions.