Leavendary Crafting Legendary Yeast For Largest Craft Brewer In Alabama
Huntsville, AL – Beginning this summer, HudsonAlpha associate company Leavendary will begin providing high-quality, customized yeast to local craft brewers as a way to help streamline the brewing process. Beginning with Back Forty Beer Company in Gadsden, Alabama, Leavendary’s technology helps breweries like Back Forty ensure a consistent flavor in every batch of beer through strategic research and implementation.
“We want our clients to make and sell the very best beer in Alabama, nationally, and internationally,” said Peyton McNully, founder of Leavendary. “We want to put Alabama on every beer enthusiast’s map.”
Located at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Ala., Leavendary’s biologists will propagate “pitchable” quantities of yeast-precise amounts of yeast for a given batch of beer—to breweries as a way to help brewers like Back Forty produce beers with consistent flavor so that every bottle, can and keg taste the same. Leavendary will also conduct quality testing at the microscopic or molecular level based on individual client needs.
“We are excited to partner with Leavendary as they will provide Back Forty with the highest-quality yeast and testing services in the industry to ensure that our consumers continue to experience our same great-tasting beer, every time,” said Jason Wilson, Chief Executive Officer of Back Forty and president of the Alabama Brewers Guild.
The art of craft brewing is thriving in the U.S., from less than a dozen craft brewers nationwide in 1980 to approximately 2,500 today. In Alabama, the industry has grown quickly, from just two or three breweries a few years ago to 29 today. According to the Alabama Brewers Guild, of which Leavendary is a member, brewing of craft beer in Alabama increased 47 percent from 2012 to 2013, well above the national increase of 18 percent.
The collaboration also fuses local industries, establishing a partnership with likeminded community-based companies dedicated to building Alabama’s craft beer infrastructure.
“At Back Forty, we are committed to supporting Alabama businesses, and this is another way we can further promote local jobs and technology,” Wilson said.
About Back Forty Beer Company: Founded in 2009, Back Forty Beer Company is the oldest packaging brewery in Alabama. Back Forty beers are available statewide in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi. The brewery is located in Historic Downtown Gadsden, Alabama. For more information, visit www.backfortybeer.com – @Back40tweets – facebook
About Leavendary: Leavendary is the first yeast propagation company for craft brewers in the southeast United States. Headquartered at HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Ala., Leavendary is applying the next generation of technology and research in the life sciences to the art of craft beer. For more information, visit www.leavendary.com – @leavendary
About HudsonAlpha: HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology is a nonprofit institute dedicated to innovating in the field of genomic technology and sciences across a spectrum of biological problems. Its mission is three-fold: sparking scientific discoveries that can impact human health and well-being; fostering biotech entrepreneurship; and encouraging the creation of a genomics-literate workforce and society. The HudsonAlpha biotechnology campus consists of 152 acres nestled within Cummings Research Park, the nation’s second largest research park. Designed to be a hothouse of biotech economic development, HudsonAlpha’s state-of-the-art facilities co-locate scientific researchers with entrepreneurs and educators. The relationships formed on the HudsonAlpha campus allow serendipity to yield results in medicine and agriculture. Since opening in 2008, HudsonAlpha, under the leadership of Dr. Richard M. Myers, a key collaborator on the Human Genome Project, has built a name for itself in genetics and genomics research and biotech education, and boasts 27 biotech companies on campus.
