Podcast appearances and mentions of kevin verstrepen

In the past stout beer has been touted for its supposed health benefits. Is there any truth to those claims - and what happens if you take the alcohol out?CrowdScience listener Aengus pondered these questions down at the pub, after noticing most of his friends were drinking non-alcoholic beers. He wondered how the non-alcoholic stuff is made – what's taken out and what's added in – and whether the final product is better for you than the alcoholic version.It's a question that takes us to Belgium, home to the experimental brewery of a global drinks company which takes the growing market for alcohol-free beer very seriously. David De Schutter, head of research and development, shows host Marnie Chesterton how to take alcohol out of beer without spoiling the flavour.We also find our way to a yeast lab in Leuven, Belgium where Kevin Verstrepen and his team have found another way to make alcohol-free beer with the help of industrious microbes: yeast varieties that brew beer without producing any alcohol in the first place. And how do they compare to the alcoholic versions? We discuss the importance of aromas in our perception of beer's taste.So should listener Aengus stick to non-alcoholic stout? We speak to scientist Tim Stockwell about the health drawbacks of alcohol, even in moderation. And gut microbiome researcher Cláudia Marques fills us in on her delicious pilot study, which looked at the effects of both non-alcoholic and alcoholic beers on our digestive tract. Along the way, Marnie taste-tests what's on the market, and asks the experts why this particular grocery shelf has become so much bigger and more flavourful in recent years.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Sam Baker Editor: Cathy Edwards Production co-ordinator: Ishmael Soriano Technical producers: Giles Aspen, Andrew Garratt and Donald MacDonald(Image: Close-up of waitress holding craft beer at bar, Brazil Credit: FG Trade via Getty Images)

Bier speelt al duizenden jaren een centrale rol in menselijke cultuur, en nog steeds blijven er nieuwe soorten bier bijkomen. Hoe kan een drankje met 4 simpele ingrediënten (graan, hop, gist en water) zoveel diversiteit aan smaak en beleving hebben? Het antwoord zit 'm in het microscopische organisme gist. Dat weten ze maar al te goed in het Leuven Institute for Beer Research in België. In dit 'bier-laboratorium' zijn onderzoekers druk bezig met het veredelen van gist, om zo het populaire drankje nóg beter te maken. In deze Nacht van NTR Wetenschap gaan we op bezoek in het bierlab en in gesprek met onderzoeksleider Kevin Verstrepen. Kevin geeft een spoedcursus gist-biologie en bier brouwen, en vertelt over onderzoek naar betere alcoholvrije bieren, een AI-analyse van biersmaak en zelfs het ontwikkelen van een 'bier-printer', die zomaar de toekomst van de brouwerij en kroeg zou kunnen zijn.

Can chemical analytics be used to predict what a sensory panel will taste? Can machine learning be used to improve a beer? Special Guests: Kevin Verstrepen and Michiel Schreurs.

Enhancing Beer with AI and Dynamic Pricing in the Food Industry---**Introduction:**- Welcome to "AI for Everyone," your podcast exploring the intersection of artificial intelligence and various industries.---**Segment 1: AI Brewing Beer**- Researchers in Belgium, led by Prof. Kevin Verstrepen from KU Leuven University, are utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the taste of beers while emphasizing the continued importance of brewer expertise.- Analysis includes examining properties of 250 commercial Belgian beers, such as alcohol content, pH, sugar concentration, and over 200 flavor-related compounds.- Machine learning models predict beer taste and appreciation based on composition, leading to improved ratings across metrics when commercial beers are enhanced using substances identified by the models.- Potential applications include improving non-alcoholic beers, but the skill of brewers remains crucial in implementing changes.---**Segment 2: Dynamic Pricing**- Wendy's new CEO, Kirk Tanner, announced plans to implement dynamic pricing to increase margin opportunities, sparking criticism from consumers concerned about potential unfairness, especially for lower-income families.- Despite initial concerns, Wendy's clarified their intention to focus on customer advantages through digital menu boards for flexible display of featured items, leveraging AI for price changes and suggestive selling to increase profits.---**Segment 3: AI Washing**- SEC Chair Gary Gensler coined the term "AI washing," likening it to deceptive practices, as some companies mislead investors by exaggerating AI capabilities or usage.- Reasons for AI washing include companies wanting to capitalize on AI's trendiness without clearly communicating its actual capabilities or integration into their operations.- Consequences of AI washing include crackdowns by regulatory bodies like the SEC, leading to fines for companies misrepresenting AI capabilities, such as Delphia and Global Predictions.---Get intouch with Myles at mylesdhillon@gmail.com

Herlinda Heras opens the show with a live phone call from Aveiro, Portugal, where she is a judge in the Ibeerian Beer Awards (Ibeerian spelled with two EEs). Portugal and Spain have a great emerging craft beer market. Portugal in the past didn’t attract so many American tourists but Herlinda saw many fellow Americans in Lisbon on this trip. Aveiro is a beautiful old town with canals and is known as the Venice of Portugal. The Ibeerian Beer Awards have judges from 13 countries. Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter welcome Kevin Verstrepen, a yeast expert from Belgium, and Vinny Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Co. Vinny Cilurzo has brought Kevin to the show because there is a big convention in Rhonert Park, right here in Sonoma County, this week, all about the yeast in beer and wine. The American Society of Brewing Chemists and The American Society for Enology and Viticulture held the Joint Yeast Symposium (April 24-26, 2019). Mark tells about how the author Michael Pollan has said that yeast are smarter than people because they have gotten people to propagate them and grow them all around the world. Kevin says humans have domesticated yeast the same as we have done with dogs and cats. Pasteur proved that yeast cells were the engine of beer brewing, without it you don’t get alcohol or carbon dioxide. It’s not like yeast has its own flavors, but it also makes other products in much lower quantities that produce taste. Some are similar to the substances that give fruit its flavors. Mark notes that you can also get flavors you don’t want, so you have to make sure you control time and temperature so you don’t get that. Yeast is a fantastic microscopic world. Kevin describes lots of different kinds of yeast that may be very different from one to the other. There is a family tree of yeast. Vinny notes that some wineries use native natural yeast. Vinny describes the right side of their menu board as the Belgian-inspired side. Many of those beers use different yeasts that they have to be careful to keep apart. Those are the more yeast-driven beers that they do, with wild yeast or Belgian yeast. Belgian white beer uses a special kind of yeast. VIB, where Kevin works, is a university lab. They work with yeast to develop products also for science and industry. Sometimes they work for yeast companies or big breweries that need special characteristics. Many great breakthroughs in Medicine have come through yeast cells. Kevin says they are similar to human cells, but simpler, and they lend themselves to research to unravel the basic secrets of life.

Boeken over de beroemde Belgische bieren zijn er al in overvloed verschenen. Maar als het over de ingrediënten en smaakbeschrijving van deze bieren gaat baseerden de auteurs hun kennis vaak op hun eigen (subjectieve) ervaring of wat algemeen geaccepteerd is onder kenners. Niet zo met het boek 'Belgisch bier getest en geproefd', van de KU Leuven-onderzoekers Kevin Verstrepen en Miguel Roncoroni. Na vijf jaar aan aroma-analyses en wekelijkse wetenschappelijk verantwoorde proefpanels verkregen ze een gigantische dataset van meer dan 250 bieren. Het uiteindelijke doel van dit monnikenwerk is om met behulp van een grote database te kunnen voorspellen welke aromacomponenten voor bepaalde smaakcombinaties zouden zorgen bij het maken van nieuwe bieren. Het boek is een mooie spin-off, waarbij de opbrengsten deels gaan naar 'Wetenschap op stap', een educatief project waarbij wetenschap in de klas gepromoot wordt door leerlingen echte wetenschappelijke experimenten te laten uitvoeren. Marc Robin Visscher trok naar Leuven en nam een kijkje in het lab van de bieronderzoekers, waarbij maar liefst 200.000(!) soorten gisten verzameld zijn. Het boek wordt uitgegeven door de Belgische uitgever Lannoo en zou volgens de uitgever in de Nederlandse boekhandels bestelbaar moeten zijn.

You may know that beer is fermented, but did you know making chocolate requires a fermentation step? Kevin Verstrepen discusses how his lab optimizes flavor profiles of the yeast used in this fermentation step, and explains how yeast was domesticated before microorganisms had been discovered. Take the MTM listener survey, we want to hear from you. Thanks! Julie’s Biggest Takeaways: Microbes are used to ferment foods, but they do more than just add ethanol or carbon dioxide: their metabolic byproducts add flavors and aromas that are an essential part of the fermented food. In cocoa bean fermentation, the yeast that are part of the initial fermentative microbial population control the development of the subsequent microbial populations and the quality of the final product. How the volatile flavor compounds generated during fermentation survive the roasting step remains unclear. Heat can destroy these labile compounds, but Kevin thinks the compounds were able to survive roasting because they become embedded in lipids (fat) of the cocoa beans. Similar compounds produced during bread rising are destroyed during baking, possibly because there is less fat to protect these molecules. Mixing data science and beer: a computer scientist in the Verstrepen lab analyzed the flavor profiles of several hundred beers, which were also analyzed by a trained tasting panel. The goal is to link the chemistry to the aroma, which requires complex algorithms due to the integration of hundreds of flavor molecules. A spontaneous hybridization between Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the normal fermentative yeast, and S. eubayanus, a cold-tolerant yeast, resulting in a hybrid that can ferment at colder temperatures, as is required for brewing lager beers. There are 2 lineages that are used by most breweries, and while different characteristics have evolved over time, the genetic bottleneck limits characteristic diversity. The Verstrepen lab made several crosses between these two species and selected for hybrids that generated those with desirable characteristics. Molecular means can determine the offspring that are most likely to confer desired characteristics, but the commercial yeasts are not specifically genetically manipulated to this end. Domesticated yeast have different characteristics than their wild counterparts. Domesticated yeasts have lost the ability to use certain sugars, but have gained abilities associated with their use; beer yeasts use maltose at much higher rates, for example. When the origins are traced using molecular methods, it goes back to medieval times. How to domesticate an organism that hasn’t been identified? Brewers have long transferred sediment from one batch of beer into new batches, which is how selection for human-desired characteristics began. Wine yeasts, which are not passaged but are likely inoculated from the same vineyard annually, show less domestication than the beer yeast.

Should you feed a cold and starve a fever? We’ll see what the science says, with Ruslan Medzhitov, Cell (00:00). Also, just in time for Oktoberfest: a look at the history of beer yeast, with Kevin Verstrepen, Cell (6:15). Finally, a STAR is born as Cell Press unveils a new approach to the methods section. Find out what’s changing, and how it’s designed to help you, with Ann Goldstein (13:10).

Host: Jeff Fox with special guest, Stijn Mertens. Mertens, a graduate student working with Kevin Verstrepen at the University of Leuven in Belgium, talks with Jeff Fox about their efforts to develop new yeast strains for making lager beers—imparting novel flavor and aroma notes without detracting from the freshness and drinkability of lagers. Unlike other beers, lagers are brewed at low temperatures and with two special hybrid versions of yeast that date back about 600 years. Those hybrids aren’t so easy to produce, but Verstrepen and Mertens first made about 30 new varieties and, by now, about tenfold more, looking to find varieties that yield unusual flavors but still produce enough alcohol at cold temperatures to make lagers of acceptable uniformity and familiarity to brewers and to consumers. Underlying these practical challenges to make better beer are some important fundamental questions about what happens when two different species of yeast are forced to mate and produce stable hybrids. During that process, a good deal of genetic change takes place, but little is known about the details or what leads to genetic stability, according to Mertens. Part of his dissertation research entails investigating some of those processes at the molecular level. This story was featured in the December 2015 issue of Microbe magazine Subscribe to MMP (free) on iTunes, Stitcher, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the Microbeworld app. Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or audio file) to jfox@asmusa.org.