Mixed-Culture Metagenomics of the Microbes Making Sour Beer

Abstract

Mixed microbial cultures create sour beers but many brewers do not know which microbes comprise their cultures. The objective of this work was to use deep sequencing to identify microorganisms in sour beers brewed by spontaneous and non-spontaneous methods. Twenty samples were received from brewers, which were processed for microbiome analysis by next generation sequencing. For bacteria, primers were used to amplify the V3-V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene; fungal DNA detection was performed using primers to amplify the entire internal transcribed spacer region. The sequencing results were then used for taxonomy assignment, sample composition, and diversity analyses, as well as nucleotide BLAST searching. We identified 60 genera and 140 species of bacteria, of which the most prevalent were Lactobacillus acetotolerans, Pediococcus damnosus, and Ralstonia picketti/mannitolilytica. In fungal identification, 19 genera and 26 species were found, among which the most common yeasts were Brettanomyces bruxellensis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In some cases, genetic material from more than 60 microorganisms was found in a single sample. In conclusion, we were able to determine the microbiomes of various mixed cultures used to produce beer, providing useful information to better understand the sour beer fermentation process and brewing techniques.