Wild Yeast, Citizen Science, and Brewing Innovation
- Paul Egglestone
- Oct 7
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 8
How do you discover new brewing yeasts and build community engagement at the same time? You invite the public in.
That’s exactly what the Wild Yeast Discovery and Brewing Project — or the Wild Yeast Zoo — set out to do. Featured in The Elephant’s Leg II: Creativity in Action, this project exemplifies FASTlab’s belief that creativity + science + community = innovation.
What is the Wild Yeast Zoo?
Led by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology (CoESB), the Bacterial Regulation and Transport Laboratory (BRaTlab), and Rogue Scholar Brewing, the Wild Yeast Zoo combines citizen science with advanced synthetic biology.
Participants across the Hunter region were sent kits to collect wild yeast samples from local flora. These were then sequenced, catalogued, and added to a growing open database of native yeast species.
But here’s the twist: alongside the science, creative industries researchers and students shaped the project’s communication, branding, and storytelling. The result? A research initiative that was not only rigorous, but also accessible, engaging, and regionally distinctive.
Why it matters
The Wild Yeast Zoo demonstrates:
Citizen science at scale — everyday people contributing to cutting-edge biology.
Respect for First Nations knowledge — by complying with the Nagoya Protocol and protecting native title intellectual property.
Commercial pathways — a yeast database that breweries can use to create truly regional, flavour-rich products.
Creative communication — branding, videos, and storytelling that made the science relatable and compelling.
It’s a reminder that when research teams invite designers, storytellers, and cultural practitioners into the lab, the outcomes travel further and last longer.
Lessons for transdisciplinary R+D
The Wild Yeast Zoo highlights three lessons FASTlab has seen time and again:
Science needs creativity to connect with people.
Community needs ownership to value research outcomes.
Innovation needs translation — bridging discovery, culture, and industry.
Why FASTlab cares
For us, the Wild Yeast Zoo is a model of what “creativity in action” looks like. It’s not art on the sidelines — it’s design and storytelling woven into the research process itself.
And that’s the future of R+D: holistic, transdisciplinary, and open to unexpected collaborators.
📖 Read the full chapter in The Elephant’s Leg II: Creativity in Action: Open Access Link
🍺 Learn more about Rogue Scholar Brewing: roguescholar.com.au
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