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Sam Adams yeast in the Smithsonian?
So this afternoon my girlfriend and I went to a beer, wine, and spirits tasting at a liquor store in Plymouth, MA. The only reason I wanted to go was because Dogfish Head was there and their sales rep totally hooked me up. He was pulling bottles of some of the better stuff out from under the table when no one else was around, hooked me up with some pint glasses, and gave me his card and told me to look him up if I'm ever at the brewery.
However, the Sam Adams table was really lame. Their sales rep only brought the Boston Lager, Sam Light, and the Irish Red. We started talking about homebrewing and she was a self proclaimed homebrewing prodigy who had only brewed one batch and already her buddies at Wachusett Brewing Co want to make her beer and bars want to stock her beer and yada yada yada. After enough of that we started walking away when I asked her one more question about Sam Adams yeast. I asked if they used the same strain in all of their beers because they all have that Sam Adams taste. She said that they did and it was their "special" ingredient and no one else has it and no one else ever will have it. I said that was a bold statement because in the last few beer books I've read there were stories about employees stealing yeast and brewers/scientists who have taken samples of beer from Belgium and Germany back home to cultivate yeast for themselves. She then replied that it would be illegal because their yeast is patented and in the Smithsonian Institute. Is this possible or is this sales rep really full of it? I went to the Smithsonian website and couldn't find anything.
I don't know if the rules for patents and beer are similar to food, but I'm going to assume they are.
Recipes may not be patented under US law. Ingredients may not be patented under US law. However, significantly new or innovative methods of preparation may be patented.
If food rules apply to beer their yeast cannot be patented, and could only be patented if they used their yeast in an innovative way.. Even then, it would be the proccess, not the microbe, protected by law.
This is all, of course, assuming that beer falls under food law for patents.
-R
My vote goes with full of it. No one who is actually some brewing prodigy needs to jerk themselves off like that. One batch? Mr. Beer makes one batch. How could you formulate a recipe with no experience? I highly doubt it was even her beer that she brewed. You don't get into the game by making it up from scratch...you need to practice. What I really wonder about is how she ended up as the SA rep. It just seems like poor publicity to put some inexperienced braggart at your table. Slap a brewmaster there...I am sure there are plenty whom are down.
On the topic of patents, yeast strains can be patented. It is not an ingredient. It is an organism. Unfortunately, with our wonderful government, you can patent any mutant that you transgenicly modify. Hello biostar corn, raping the environment. So your genotype is protected, and therefore the accessibility and use of your product is protected. The human genome is patented...how disgusting is that? It has been made publicly accessible due to the fact that the monster corporations who have the money to actually sequence it don't make the innovations, it is the small labs. The same goes for many experimental organisms, like yeast. So say some guy develops a super-cold tolerant yeast, he can patent it, although his modifications will be made public for the sake of peer review and to further the research, the second that yeast goes commercial, he gets a paycheck.
On the topic of the Smithsonian, I am sure they have a gene bank, but I highly doubt it has anything to do with Sam Adams in particular, and I am certain that it has nothing to do with the legal aspects involved. It is basically a museum, not a patent lawyer. Chalk another one up to this Sam Adam's brew goddess. I hope she was beautiful, because otherwise, it is just sad.
randyfolds wrote:
I hope she was beautiful, because otherwise, it is just sad.
Unfortunately, I'm going to have to go with sad. She was good looking but not hot enough for me to sit there and nod in agreement to everything she said. Apparently she's going to be frequenting the same LHBS that I go to so maybe I'll run into her again. Another thing she said was that whole hops are the best and only way to go and she would never think of using pellet hops. I asked her why she thought so and she just kept on saying, "Because they're just the best". She told me I should never add my hops to the boil and that they need to be boiled in water separately and then added to the wort because that's the way commercial breweries do it. On top of this she added that she forgot to add her crystals (crystal malt I'm assuming) to the boil and boiled that separately as well (I'm assuming she was referring to steeping her specialty grains) and added to her carboy afterwards. A few others there were listening to her stories and thought it was great how Sam Adams employees know so much about beer and brew their own. At some point some guy behind me, who must have been a homebrewer, muttered "What? You gotta be s***ting me.." and walked away.
Maybe she was just some nutcase who was really into Sam Adams...and witchcraft apparently. Try my new brew man, water, crystals, fresh hops, picked in the nude under a full moon, and some patented illegal yeast. As far as fresh hops are concerned, I am sure they are way danker, but if you can't get them ridiculously fresh, I would much rather have them in an unoxidized flash-frozen pellet than some bruised and mangled mess of halfway fresh.
What you should really do is see if you can get your grubby hands on that yeast...distribute it to everyone who wants a piece. I have unlimited agar and yeast nutrient. Its crime committing time. I am ready to go down in infamy for pirating yeast.
She should check out The Sam Adams web site, The founder shows how to make a home brew, and clearly boils the hops with the malt. Plus, i've known alot of reps, it doesn't matter, what they are selling, they always want to come off sounding more important than they are, most of them don't know anything in detail about the product, just how to sell it.
Indeed.... At the wine shop, we get a lot of reps come in peddling cheap-ass grape water for 4.35 a bottle wholesale, and calling it "a nice light spring wine" when they know full well it's thinned out Juicy Juice with ethyl alcohol added to 14%.
Of course, when people try to feed us crap, we return the favor. We smile, say "it's nice!", write "fruity" or "bright" on the tasting notes, and never talk to the rep again.
-R
randyfolds wrote:
On the topic of patents, yeast strains can be patented.
The reason for a patent is to obtain exclusive rights to something. If for some reason another brewery got a hold of the patented strain, how would the patent holding brewery know if someone else was using the same strain of yeast?
What you should really do is see if you can get your grubby hands on that yeast...distribute it to everyone who wants a piece. I have unlimited agar and yeast nutrient. Its crime committing time. I am ready to go down in infamy for pirating yeast.
We should have a contest to see who can get a hold of this elusive yeast. SA is pretty strict. A couple months ago when I found out Diamond Knot Brewery gave away free yeast I emailed ten local breweries in the New England area to inquire if they did something similar. Only one said that they had done it but are not currently at the moment and would contact me if they ever did again. Others politely said no but did show interest and praise for local homebrewers. SA just give me a big fat NO!
Disclaimer: The above comment was made in a joking fashion and I am not suggesting we team up and steal anyone's signature yeast. I know no one here would ever do something like that 
FirePitBrew wrote:
The reason for a patent is to obtain exclusive rights to something. If for some reason another brewery got a hold of the patented strain, how would the patent holding brewery know if someone else was using the same strain of yeast?
I think it would be fairly easy, as the patent holder would know exactly what they were looking for. It would be a short step to screen for the unique trait that was patented. I bet there is a way to get the yeast, but probably through laboratory suppliers. Research anyone? If this yeast is indeed patented, we can find the patent. From there it is just a matter of finding the same strain for research purposes. Oh, I wish that this green goblin didn't make me so lazy...
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