Loudoun has a world-class craft beer scene, but did you know we also have a world-class beer scientist? Dutch-born microbiologist Jasper Akerboom moved to Loudoun in 2007 to work at the Janelia Research Campus on calcium indicators to measure brain activity. At some point though, he found the local beer scene more interesting. In 2013 he founded Jasper Yeast, a Sterling-based lab that isolates unique yeast strains for Loudoun and other breweries.
One of his earliest projects was extracting a yeast from a whale fossil in the Calvert Marine Museum in Maryland that was then used in Lost Rhino Brewing’s Bone Dusters Paleo Ale. Other projects include isolating yeast from wooden barrels used by the Washington Brewing Company in the late 1800s to extracting yeast from fields at Wheatland Spring Farm + Brewery for the brewery’s all-local Loudoun Grown Farmhouse Ale. “One thing we always pursue is extracting old and forgotten strains,” Akerboom said. “These could be from old bottles, beers and casks to pre-Prohibition ale yeasts from back when ale-making was a big thing in the US."
"By studying these yeasts and brewing with them, we take a peek back in time at what beer tasted like then.”
The journey from the extraction of a unique strain to having a beer from it ready for consumption can take years. Back in 2021, Akerboom was at an event where a local beer collector opened a bottle of Bass King Ale from England that had been bottled in 1903.
Naturally, Akerboom set out to extract a strain from the ancient bottle and after two years of trial and error, succeeded. He made a small batch of beer with the yeast and was so impressed with it that he took a strand to his friend Favio Garcia, the experimental Director of Brewing Operations at Loudoun’s Dynasty Brewing Company. Fast forward to today and Dynasty is set to release the beer this year.
We’ll drink to that!
