Chinese researchers have genetically engineered brewers yeast to prolong the shelf life of beer and to eliminate the foul smell that comes with stale or off-beer.

The yeast will slow down the process of alcohol expiring and lowers the production of aldehydes, which can give beer a smell that has been compared to wet cardboard or old people.

“Flavour stability is a significant concern to brewers as the staling compounds impart unpleasant flavour to beer,” the researchers write in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

‘By engineering endogenous pathways, we obtained an array of yeast strains with higher reducing activity. Then, we carried out beer fermentation with these strains and found that the anti-staling capacities of the beer samples were improved.”

While some are embracing the research, saying that it could save the beer industry millions in dollars a year, others question whether consumers will adopt beer that has GM products. While in the USA this will not be much of a problem due to many foods having GM components, in Europe this could be a different story.