Carlsberg recreates historic lager with old yeast

A statue of Carlsberg founder JC Jacobsen stands in front of the Carlsberg Research Laboratory, which celebrates its 140th anniversary this year. Photos: The Star/Jacobus Raj

Dark, dusty cellars can hide treasures as renovation workers at Carlsberg’s head office in Copenhagen, Denmark discovered when they cleaned out some old cellars there some three years ago.

What they stumbled on were bottles of an old Carlsberg brew dating back to the 1880s, a time after Danish mycologist and fermentation physiologist Dr Emil Christian Hansen had developed a technique to isolate pure yeast for use in brewing.