National Collection of Yeast Cultures
NCYC has served the brewing industry for over 70 years, providing secure and confidential storage of the commercial brewing yeast strains as well as molecular typing of brewing yeasts.
NCYC houses the largest public available collection of brewing yeasts. British ale strains are the largest group of strains represented in the collection – with over 400 strains -, but also larger strains of European, American and rest of the world origin. Lately they have incorporated to the collection and interesting subset of traditional Norwegian Kveik yeast cultures.
Brewers around the world have been using the Yeast bank service over many years to safe guard proprietary strains. Strains are stored at highest standard in liquid nitrogen at – 196°C. Every strain is stored by two methods to guaranty long term preservation. This service includes two free cultures per year.
Ready to Pitch yeast
NCYC and Murphy & Son started a commercial relationship three years ago. Over that period, they have provided Ready to Pitch yeast to British and European breweries. This service offers the purest yeast strains in pitchable volumes to the brewing industry. Brewers can choose to propagate any of the NCYC brewing strains or their own proprietary strains. Custom propagation offers the brewers the adaptability to try and test new strains as well as their own signature strains. Liquid yeast ready to pitch is propagated on demand for each customer achieving high concentration and viability.
NCYC also offers regular supply of pure strains for brewers that already do propagation in their breweries.
NCYC provides a variety of molecular techniques to help the brewers, some of them are:
- Yeast Identification – DNA sequence analysis
- DNA fingerprinting – Authentication/Comparison of cerevisiae strains
- cerevisiae var diastaticus detection PCR
Services can be useful as quality control measurements or to detect potential spoilage strains. Depending on the brewer’s objectives we can advise which methods may be more suitable to the individual needs. If you are interested in discussing any of the services or would like to enquiry about how any of the techniques could be of help to your brewery, please contact laboratory@murphyandson.co.uk
