Craft beer may get cheaper thanks to GM yeast with hoppy flavour

A GENETICALLY engineered yeast makes beer taste of hops – without any actual hops. The yeast could help make brewing beer cheaper and more sustainable.

Hops are the flowers of the hop plant Humulus lupulus. They give floral and bitter flavours to beer, but their high cost contributes to the price tag of craft beers. What’s more, growing hops uses lots of water and energy, and the amount of flavour they impart varies.

So Charles Denby, Rachel Li and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, set out to create a yeast that produces some of the chemicals…