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Delicious beer made from fossils: Yabba-dabba-doo!




Busch has got nothing on this ancient brew.

Having a rough day at work? As soon as you get out of the office, maybe you should find some time to sit back, chill, and pop open a couple of carefully crafted brews... made from a whale fossil millions of years old.

Introducing Bone Dusters Paleo Ale, the product of a collaborative project between Paleo Quest, a non-profit organization focusing on paleontology and geology, and Lost Rhino Brewing Company, a group of brewers based in Ashburn, Virginia.

PaleoQuest's co-founder, Jason Osborne, contacted a microbiologist from Lost Rhino, Jaspen Akerboom, after realizing that there's room for making the already exciting process of studying prehistory even better through the use of some good old ale.

“Knowing that yeast, the organism responsible for turning sugar into alcohol, is everywhere, he wondered whether there was an undiscovered strain hanging out on fossils that could be roped into making beer,” writes Kalliopi Monoyios in his article on Scientific American.

After Osborne consulted Akerboom regarding the possibility of finding yeast on fossils he excavated, the brewing scientist proceeded to swab the 14 million-year-old skull of a protocetid whale, and subsequently unearthed a startling new discovery: a new subspecies of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (a staple of breweries and wineries worldwide). They gave the new subspecies the name Saccharomyces cerevisiae var protocetus, in honor of its source.

Yabba dabba drunk!

The article reports that Osborne and Akerboom were able to produce 650 gallons of Paleo Ale in the first batch. The brew is set to start pouring through Lost Rhino's taproom in Ashburn, but may also be offered through distributors. According to Monoyios, the label will feature an illustration he rendered.

Aside from the sheer “cool” factor of drinking what basically counts as prehistoric beer (and the fact that, apparently, no fossils were seriously harmed in the making of the brew), proceeds from Paleo Beer will be directed to a fund for providing underprivileged schools with microscopes, consumables, and other science tools and resources.

Oh, and for those who might be worried that using samples from “dirty old fossils” would result in dinosaur-sized diseases and stomachaches of mastodon-like proportions, Monoyios had this to say: “For the rest of us who are comfortable with the microbes that coat virtually everything we come into contact with (and who outnumber us cell-for-cell, even on what we’d define as our own turf: the bodies we so arrogantly claim as our own), this is UNDENIABLY COOL[…] And if the reception that Osborne has gotten at lectures for various professional geology and paleontology groups is any indication, I am not the only one who shares this enthusiasm.”

If you're still not convinced, maybe you could just ask Fred or Barney if the beer's any good (and be thankful that they haven't thought of making coffee from dinosaur poop yet). – TJD, GMA News
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