Serial repitching of beer brewer’s yeast plays an important role in the beer industry as an ineluctable economic factor. In this study, the viability and vitality changes, as well as strains’ anti-autolytic abilities during serial beer fermentation with typical ale and lager yeast strains, were investigated. While measuring the survival rate of yeast cells is not sufficient for evaluating and predicting the yeast fermentation capacity, physiological status determination of brewer’s yeast reflects the vitality and quality of yeast in serial beer fermentations. Accumulation of reactive oxygen species in yeast causes cell damage, leading to a decline in cell vitality and viability. Aged yeast cells, after several repitchings, can result in leakage of intracellular compounds into the fermented liquor. The lager yeast (Pilsner) examined, which harbors the partial genome from S. eubayanus, showed better robustness and higher activity than the ale yeast strain M79 examined, during serial fermentation. A holistic approach, including more indicators, should be applied in evaluating the fermentation performance of brewer’s yeast.

Yeast flocculation plays an essential role in industrial application. Appropriate flocculation of yeast cells at the end of fermentation benefits the cell separation in production, which is an important characteristic of lager yeast for beer production. Due to the complex fermentation environment and diverse genetic background of yeast strains, it is difficult to explain the flocculation mechanism and find key genes that affect yeast flocculation during beer brewing. By analyzing the genomic mutation of two natural mutant yeasts with stronger flocculation ability compared to the parental strain, it was found that the mutated genes common in both mutants were enriched in protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum, membrane lipid metabolism and other pathways or biological processes involved in stress responses. Further functional verification of genes revealed that regulation of RIM101 and VPS36 played a role in lager yeast flocculation under the brewing condition. This work provided new clues for improving yeast flocculation in beer brewing.

(1) Background: The degradation products of ribonucleic acid (RNA)are widely used in the food and pharmaceutical industry for their flavoring and nutritional enhancement functions. Yeast is the main source for commercial RNA production, and an efficient strain is the key to reducing production costs; (2) Methods: A mutant Saccharomyces pastorianus G03H8 with a high RNA yield was developed via ARTP mutagenesis and fed-batch fermentation was applied to optimize production capacity. Genome sequencing analysis was used to reveal the underlying mechanism of higher RNA production genetic differences in the preferred mutant; (3) Results: Compared with the highest RNA content of the mutant strain, G03H8 increased by 40% compared with the parental strain G03 after response surface model optimization. Meanwhile, in fed-batch fermentation, G03H8′s dry cell weight (DCW) reached 60.58 g/L in 5 L fermenter by molasses flowing and RNA production reached up to 3.58 g/L. Genome sequencing showed that the ribosome biogenesis, yeast meiosis, RNA transport, and longevity regulating pathway were closely related to the metabolism of high RNA production; (4) Conclusion: S. pastorianus G03H8 was developed for RNA production and had the potential to greatly reduce the cost of RNA production and shorten the fermentation cycle. This work lays the foundation for efficient RNA content using S. pastorianus.