Studying the genetic and molecular characteristics of brewing yeast strains is crucial for understanding their domestication history and adaptations accumulated over time in fermentation environments, and for guiding optimizations to the brewing process itself. Saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewing yeast) is among the most profiled organisms on the planet, yet the temporal molecular changes that underlie industrial fermentation and beer brewing remain understudied. Here, we characterized the genomic makeup of a Saccharomyces cerevisiae ale yeast widely used in the production of Hefeweizen beers, and applied shotgun mass spectrometry to systematically measure the proteomic changes throughout 2 fermentation cycles which were separated by 14 rounds of serial repitching. The resulting brewing yeast proteomics resource includes 64,740 protein abundance measurements. We found that this strain possesses typical genetic characteristics of Saccharomyces cerevisiae ale strains and displayed progressive shifts in molecular processes during fermentation based on protein abundance changes. We observed protein abundance differences between early fermentation batches compared to those separated by 14 rounds of serial repitching. The observed abundance differences occurred mainly in proteins involved in the metabolism of ergosterol and isobutyraldehyde. Our systematic profiling serves as a starting point for deeper characterization of how the yeast proteome changes during commercial fermentations and additionally serves as a resource to guide fermentation protocols, strain handling, and engineering practices in commercial brewing and fermentation environments. Finally, we created a web interface (https://brewing-yeast-proteomics.ccbb.utexas.edu/) to serve as a valuable resource for yeast geneticists, brewers, and biochemists to provide insights into the global trends underlying commercial beer production.
Valuation and Collaboration among Craft Brewers: Early Insights from an Analysis of Consumer Ratings
In pursuing the problem of (e)valuation in sociology, this paper is concerned with the collaborative dynamics that create value. Based on a unique dataset of 225 collaborations among craft brewers, we analyze which combinations of organizations increase consumer ratings of the beers produced. Craft brewing provides a fascinating laboratory for the study of how consumers rate the products of collaborative formations. Collaborations between craft brewers result in one-off products, beers that exist for a limited period of time, rarely to be produced again. Such collaborations occur frequently and exist over the course of several weeks or months, until the product is brewed, packaged, and distributed. At that point, collaborators return to their daily brewing operations. With the help of several research assistants, we created a dataset of craft brewer all collaborations in which at least one brewer was located in Illinois. The data are compiled from websites on which consumers rate beers: RateBeer and Untappd.
Initial analyses shows that brewers that follow certain strategies are likely to collaborate with others pursuing certain strategies. For example, we find that brewers that engage in serial hook-ups are likely to do so with brewers that are outside of their core networks while monogamists are likely to seek out those who engage in serial hook-ups. These strategies have consequences for the valuation of their efforts. The products of craft brewers who collaborate with those outside of their core networks consistently receive higher consumer ratings than other forms of collaboration. We suspect that certain collaborative arrangements facilitate authenticity or novelty in the marketplace, which consumers reward with higher ratings. We plan to test hypotheses related to whether authenticity or novelty are driving changes in consumer valuations of products.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1734503
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10293766
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Sociological Association Annual Meeting
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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A common research process in visualization is for visualization researchers to collaborate with domain experts to solve particular applied data problems. While there is existing guidance and expertise around how to structure collaborations to strengthen research contributions, there is comparatively little guidance on how to navigate the implications of, and power produced through the socio-technical entanglements of collaborations. In this paper, we qualitatively analyze reflective interviews of past participants of collaborations from multiple perspectives: visualization graduate students, visualization professors, and domain collaborators. We juxtapose the perspectives of these individuals, revealing tensions about the tools that are built and the relationships that are formed — a complex web of competing motivations. Through the lens of matters of care, we interpret this web, concluding with considerations that both trouble and necessitate reformation of current patterns around collaborative work in visualization design studies to promote more equitable, useful, and care-ful outcomes.more » « less
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