Beer · History · Short entry

Hansen's pure yeast culture at Carlsberg

In 1883 Emil Chr. Hansen of the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen isolated a single yeast cell and grew a pure culture, first used for production brewing in November 1883.

Location: Copenhagen (Valby), Denmark

1883 (production use from November 1883)

Hansen showed that wild yeast in pitching yeast caused 'beer sickness' and propagated a pure culture from one cell; Carlsberg brewed with it and gave it to other brewers.

Why it mattered

Pure-culture yeast became standard practice in lager brewing worldwide.

One cell

According to Carlsberg, Hansen, head of the physiology department of the Carlsberg Laboratory, found in 1883 that bad beer was not caused only by bacteria, as Pasteur had assumed, but also by wild yeasts in the pitching yeast. He isolated a single cell of good yeast and propagated it into a pure culture, used on a production scale for the first time in November 1883. J. C. Jacobsen, Carlsberg's founder, gave the yeast to other brewers free of charge.

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