A group on Kickstarter aims to use genomics to help answer that age-old question pub-goers face: Which beer should I get?
The team, led by Gianpaolo Rando from University of Geneva, is seeking $10,950 so that it can sample and analyze the grain, yeast, bacterial, and other organismal genomes found in a beer. The group hopes to raise funds to sample 100 different beers — 1,000 beers if they receive even more funding — and compare them to make a phylogenetic tree of sorts for beer. That "tree of beers cheat sheet" would then help their backers choose a beer based on how similar or different it is from ones they know they like.
"Think of it as a giant beer tree that maps the relationships between all your favorite styles of beer," Paste Magazine adds.
In the end, Rando and his team say they want to build an app that compares the genomes, proteomes, and metabolomes of more than 1,000 beers.