Beer production potentiality of some non-Saccharomyces yeast obtained from a traditional beer starter emao.

The recent realisation regarding the potentiality of the long-neglected non-Saccharomyces yeasts in improving the flavour profile and functionality of alcoholic beverages has pushed researchers to search for such potent strains in many sources. We studied the fungal diversity and the rice beer production capability of the fungal strains isolated from emao-a traditional rice beer starter culture of the Boro community. Fifty distinct colonies were picked from mixed-culture plates, of which ten representative morphotypes were selected for species identification, and simultaneous saccharification and beer fermentation (SSBF) assay.

Community structure and metabolic potentials of the traditional rice beer starter 'emao'.

The emao, a traditional beer starter used in the North-East regions of India produces a high quality of beer from rice substrates; however, its microbial community structure and functional metabolic modules remain unknown. To address this gap, we have used shot-gun whole-metagenome sequencing technology; accordingly, we have detected several enzymes that are known to catalyze saccharification, lignocellulose degradation, and biofuel production indicating the presence of metabolic functionome in the emao. The abundance of eukaryotic microorganisms, specifically the members of Mucoromycota and Ascomycota, dominated over the prokaryotes in the emao compared to previous metagenomic studies on such traditional starters where the relative abundance of prokaryotes occurred higher than the eukaryotes.