Danno wrote:I seem to remember the BN show saying that the Servomyces was yeast grown with a high zinc content. So that's probably the major difference.
Yes this is right, the brewers in Germany were looking for a way to get zinc into the beer. But all they could use were hops, barley, water and yeast. (Some breweries were using mash paddles made of zinc!)
So they came up with this special yeast w/ extra zinc. They would just add it at the end of the boil. Before it was approved, they had to prove that it could actually ferment wort. And it did, though it was said that the beer it made was pretty awful.
Cheers,
Dr Scott