Fossil-Infused Beer, 75 Million-Year-Old Turtle Bones

Abstract

If you’re an aficionado of craft beers made from ancient relics, then you will be happy to know that Lost Rhino Brewing in Ashburn, Va., is cooking up 650 gal of beer made with yeast teased from a 35 million-year-old whale fossil. It should be on tap at the end of May. To be known as Bone Dusters Paleo Ale, the thirst-quenching mind-bender is the brainchild of two scientists: Jason Osborne and Jasper Akerboom. Osborne, a mechanical engineer at the Janelia Farm Research Campus of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, was looking for a way to get people to talk about science while throwing back a cold one. As an amateur paleontologist and cofounder of the fossil-hunting group Paleo Quest, he hit on the idea of trying to recruit some yeast residing on fossils to make the beer. For that task he enlisted Akerboom, a microbiologist at Janelia Farm, who has ...