Saccharomyces eubayanus

Saccharomyces eubayanus, a cryotolerant (cold tolerant) type of yeast, is most likely the parent of the lager brewing yeast, Saccharomyces pastorianus. It is also a parent of Saccharomyces bayanus, a wine and cider yeast.

Lager is a type of beer created from malted barley and fermented at low temperatures, originally in Bavaria. S. eubayanus was first discovered in Patagonia and is capable of fermenting glucose, along with the disaccharide maltose at reduced temperatures. Although originally considered a possible case of Columbian exchange, Tibetan (Himalayan) strains of S. eubayanus proved more similar to S. pastorianus than the Patagonian strains at 99.82%.