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Kendall Fults, co-owner of Fults Family Vineyards in Lower Lake, Calif., presents a check for $3,500 to Marc Hill of the Lake County Fire Protection District on Friday, June 1 2018. Photo by Dustin Fults.


LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – On June 1, Dustin and Kendall Fults, co-owners of Fults Family Vineyards, presented a check for $3,500 to Marc Hill of the Lake County Fire Protection District.

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BERKELEY, Calif. – Hoppy beer is all the rage among craft brewers and beer lovers, and now UC Berkeley biologists have come up with a way to create these unique flavors and aromas without using hops.

The researchers created strains of brewer’s yeast that not only ferment the beer but also provide two of the prominent flavor notes provided by hops. In double-blind taste tests, employees of Lagunitas Brewing Co. in Petaluma characterized beer made from the engineered strains as more hoppy than a control beer made with regular yeast and Cascade hops.

Bryan Donaldson, innovations manager at Lagunitas, detected notes of “fruit-loops” and “orange blossom” with no off flavors.

Why would brewers want to use yeast instead of hops to impart flavor and aroma? According to Charles Denby, one of two first authors of a paper appearing this week in the journal Nature Communications, growing hops uses lots of water, not to mention fertilizer and energy to transport the crop, all of which could be avoided by using yeast to make a hop-forward brew. A pint of craft beer can require 50 pints of water merely to grow the hops, which are the dried flowers of a climbing plant.

“My hope is that if we can use the technology to make great beer that is produced with a more sustainable process, people will embrace that,” Denby said.

Hops’ flavorful components, or essential oils, are also highly variable from year to year and plot to plot, so using a standardized yeast would allow uniformity of flavor. And hops are expensive.

A former UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow, Denby has launched a startup called Berkeley Brewing Science with Rachel Li, the second first author and a UC Berkeley doctoral candidate. They hope to market hoppy yeasts to brewers, including strains that contain more of the natural hop flavor components, and create other strains that incorporate novel plant flavors not typical of beer brewed from the canonical ingredients: water, barley, hops and yeast.

Using DNA scissors

The engineered yeast strains were altered using CRISPR-Cas9, a simple and inexpensive gene-editing tool invented at UC Berkeley. Denby and Li inserted four new genes plus the promoters that regulate the genes into industrial brewer’s yeast.

Two of the genes – linalool synthase and geraniol synthase – code for enzymes that produce flavor components common to many plants. In this instance, the genes came from mint and basil, respectively. Genes from other plants that were reported to have linalool synthase activity, such as olive and strawberry, were not as easy to work with.

The two other genes were from yeast and boosted the production of precursor molecules needed to make linalool and geraniol, the hoppy flavor components.

All of the genetic components – the Cas9 gene, four yeast, mint and basil genes and promoters – were inserted into yeast on a tiny circular DNA plasmid. The yeast cells then translated the Cas9 gene into the Cas9 proteins, which cut the yeast DNA at specific points. Yeast repair enzymes then spliced in the four genes plus promoters.

The researchers used a specially designed software program to get just the right mix of promoters to produce linalool and geraniol in proportions similar to the proportions in commercial beers produced by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, which operates a tap room not far from the startup.

They then asked Charles Bamforth, a malting and brewing authority at UC Davis, to brew a beer from three of the most promising strains, using hops only in the initial stage of brewing – the wort – to get the bitterness without the hoppy flavor. Hop flavor was supplied only by the new yeast strains. Bamforth also brewed a beer with standard yeast and hops, and asked a former student, Lagunitas’s Donaldson, to conduct a blind comparison taste test with 27 brewery employees.

“This was one of our very first sensory tests, so being rated as hoppier than the two beers that were actually dry-hopped at conventional hopping rates was very encouraging,” Li said.

From sustainable fuels to sustainable beer

Denby came to UC Berkeley to work on sustainable transportation fuels with Jay Keasling, a pioneer in the field of synthetic biology and a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

The strategy developed by Keasling is to make microbes, primarily bacteria and yeast, ramp up their production of complex molecules called terpenes, and then insert genes that turn these terpenes into commercial products.

These microbes can make such chemicals as the antimalarial drug artemisinin, fuels such as butanol and aromas and flavors used in the cosmetic industry.

But the brewing project “found me,” Denby said

“I started home brewing out of curiosity with a group of friends while I was starting out in Jay's lab, in part because I enjoy beer and in part because I was interested in fermentation processes,” he said. “I found out that the molecules that give hops their hoppy flavor are terpene molecules, and it wouldn't be too big of a stretch to think we could develop strains that make terpenes at the same concentrations that you get when you make beer and add hops to them.”

The final hook was that a hoppy strain of yeast would make the brewing process more sustainable than using agriculturally produced hops, which is a very natural-resource-intensive product, he said.

“We started our work on engineering microbes to produce isoprenoids – like flavors, fragrances and artemisinin – about 20 years ago,” said Keasling. “At the same time, we were building tools to accurately control metabolism. With this project, we are able to use some of the tools others and we developed to accurately control metabolism to produce just the right amount of hops flavors for beer.”

Denby and Li first had to overcome some hurdles, such as learning how to genetically engineer commercial brewer’s yeast. Unlike the yeast used in research labs, which have one set of chromosomes, brewer’s yeast has four sets of chromosomes.

They found out that they needed to add the same four genes plus promoters to each set of chromosomes to obtain a stable strain of yeast; if not, as the yeast propagated they lost the added genes.

They also had to find out, through computational analytics performed by Zak Costello, which promoters would produce the amounts of linalool and geraniol at the right times to approximate the concentrations in a hoppy beer, and then scale up fermentation by a factor of about 100 from test tube quantities to 40-liter kettles.

In the end, they were able to drink their research project, and continue to do so at their startup as they ferment batches of beer to test new strains of yeast.

“Charles and Rachel have shown that using the appropriate tools to control production of these flavors can result in a beer with a more consistent hoppy flavor, even better than what nature can do itself,” Keasling said.

The work was funded from grants awarded by the National Science Foundation. These include an initial grant awarded to UC Berkeley to use synthetic biology in yeast to produce industrially important products, and subsequent funding from a Small Business Innovation Research grant to Berkeley Brewing Science.

In addition to Denby, Li, Costello, Keasling, Donaldson and Bamforth, other coauthors are Van Vu of UC Berkeley, Weiyin Lin, Leanne Jade Chan, Christopher Petzold, Henrik Scheller and Hector Garcia Martin of the Joint BioEnergy Institute in Emeryville, which is part of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Joseph Williams of UC Davis.

Robert Sanders writes for the UC Davis News Center.
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Protesters assembled near the Soper-Reese Theatre in Lakeport, Calif., on Saturday, June 30, 2018, to protest policies that separated immigrant families. Photo by Cindi Koehn.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – A small but enthusiastic group of concerned citizens marched in Lakeport June 30 to protest actions by the Trump administration that separated young children and babies from their immigrant parents.

Many were armed with hand-drawn signs and waved U.S. flags, and said they were there because they could no longer stay silent about what they considered an illegal and immoral act by the Trump administration.

The march in Lakeport was just one of many that took place in more than 700 cities across the US and abroad.

The group had scheduled a much larger event on N. Main Street near the County Courthouse, but had to cancel this at the last minute, due to a conflict with a planned bicycle race.

“We had speakers lined up and a lot more people who had signed up to come,” said Cindi Koehn, event organizer. “There were so many who contacted me and wanted to be a part of the nationwide protests, we decided to have it at a different location. We only had two days to reschedule and inform people the protest was still on. Even with the late changes, our group had over 60 participants at times.”

The group carried signs with a variety of messages. Most stressed “love” over “hate” and called for keeping families together. “We Care” and the ACLU placard, “Hate Has No Home Here,” were meant as encouragement for those personally impacted by the "zero tolerance" policy and a reminder that they are not alone.

Other signs demanded Trump’s deportation or the abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

While women seemed to be in the majority, there were several men and children also taking part, along with a few friendly dogs.

The group assembled at the Soper-Reese Theatre and walked south on Main Street on the sidewalk, while chanting such slogans as “Love, not hate, makes America great” and “the people united, will never be divided.”

Following the short march, the group gathered near the Soper-Reese to make their voices known to drivers forced to detour past them due to the bicycle race.

“I could not stay home today,” said Kathy Herdman, one of the marchers. “Seeing kids in cages and having missing girls and babies … this is not the America I know and love. I had to do something.”

Christina Drukala joined the protest after seeing the group while she was refilling her propane at a station near the theatre.

“My heart is aching, seeing what is happening to our country,” she said. “I am a child therapist and I am very concerned about the long term effects of this separation on the children, especially the babies. We all have to voice our concern and opposition to the horrible policies of this administration.”

Another protester, Lynne Demele, added forcefully, “We have to stop the Trump machine. We can’t just sit home any longer and we have to vote.”

Many of those driving by voiced support with long, extended horn honks and friendly waves.

Other drivers and passengers appeared embarrassed, covering their faces with their hands and refusing to interact or make eye contact.

One man in a shiny blue Corvette expressed his opinion by pointing his thumb downward as he drove past the group.

There were also a few who drove big pickup trucks carrying large US flags, who tried to drown out the chanters with revving engines and smoking tires. These actions resulted in laughter and comments by protesters. “Do you think that guy voted for Trump?” asked one.

The protest was peaceful and lasted about an hour.

For more information about upcoming similar events, go to Families Belong Together Lakeport March on Facebook.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Continuum of Care has announced the availability of two grant opportunities through the Department of Housing and Community Development, or HCD.

The grants are offered by HCD’s Emergency Solutions Grant, or ESG, Program.

Federal ESG funds are available in two grants:

• a $133,900 Formula Allocation Grant for Rapid Rehousing Programs only; and
• a $133,900 Regional Competition Grant for Emergency Shelter or Rapid Rehousing Programs.

Additional ESG funds from for State of California shall be available by notice of funding availability later this summer.

Agencies applying must be a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization or government agency that serves those struggling with homelessness or at-risk of becoming homeless in Lake County.

Agencies may apply for both grant opportunities; however the programs must meet the Department of Housing and Urban Development definition of Rapid Rehousing or Emergency Shelter.

Local applicants must meet the 100-percent match funding requirements outlined in the ESG NOFA for the full grant allotment.

In making funding recommendations to HCD, Lake County Continuum of Care shall use a process which is:

• Fair and open and avoids conflicts of interest in project selection, implementation, and the administration of funds;
• Considers selection criteria reasonably consistent with the criteria used by the Department in section 8407;
• Complies with the requirements of sections 8408 and 8409;
• Incorporates reasonable performance standards as set forth in the Action Plan based on HUD requirements and guidance. If the applicant has not implemented the proposed activity or similar activity within the past three years, the Continuum of Care shall work with the funded applicant to ensure it meets reasonable performance standards specified in the Action Plan in the contract year;
• Complies with federal ESG requirements; and
• Considers any other practices promoted or required by HUD.

Two complete original applications and one USB flash drive of the hard copy application with signatures must be received by the LCCoC no later than 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday, July 31, 2018.

A funding panel consisting of LCCoC leadership and community volunteers shall decide which two applications will be submitted to HCD on Thursday, August, 2018. The local and state notice of funding availability is available online at http://hoperisinglakecounty.com/portfolio-of-interventions.

The Lake County Continuum of Care is a HUD-designated organization that promotes communitywide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness; provides funding for efforts by nonprofit providers, and state and local governments to quickly rehouse homeless individuals and families while minimizing the trauma and dislocation caused to homeless individuals, families, and communities by homelessness; promotes access to and effects utilization of mainstream programs by homeless individuals and families; and optimizes self-sufficiency among individuals and families experiencing homelessness.

Technical assistance is available. For more information, contact Lake County Continuum of Care Coordinator Marianne Taylor at 707-995-5677 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
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At the evacuation center at the Moose Lodge Clearlake Oaks, Calif., Carol Brown, RN and Worldwide Healing Hands volunteer shows Dale Stambuck, fire evacuee, how to use the glucometer donated by Worldwide Healing Hands. Photo taken with permission.


CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – Worldwide Healing Hands' volunteers rapidly responded to attend to the Pawnee fire evacuees in Lake County last month.

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