Beer for Breakfast? A Brew from the Dawn of Man

The Replacements have a song called Beer for Breakfast. It's about their love affair with the sudsy "hair of the dog" approach to overcoming a hangover. Maybe they'd like a new brew coming out of the West: a Pale Ale whose key ingredient dates back to the Dawn of Man. (Get it? Dawn? Breakfast? )

A lot of different elements go into defining the character of a beer; hops, yeast, malt and the fermentation process, to name a few. There are hundreds of variations and combinations of each. But a group of scientists and brewers from California have teamed up to brew one of those most interesting beers of our time. Their key ingredient? A strain of yeast that dates back to the Eocene Epoch, some 45 million years ago. They call their partnership Fossil Fuels Brewing.

They discovered a snapshot of biological life frozen into an over-sized bead of tropical tree sap in Central America. And from it, just like in Jurassic Park, they were able to extract the DNA of a modern-day entity's ancient ancestors. In this case, brewing yeast. The result? A smooth tasting beer that takes you back to a time marked by the emergence of Earth's first mammals.

(Thanks to Beer Advocate)