Oregon based Rogue Ales will be releasing a beer known as the “New Crustacean,” which will be crafted using wild yeast from head brewer John Maier’s beard! Although quite hilarious, this news is actually true! Rogue sent in several samples of yeast from their hopyards to White Labs in effort to brew with their own unique, local strain of yeast. As a joke, they sent several strands of hair from Maier’s beard in a petry dish along with their hopyard samples. It turns out that none of the hopyard samples were suitable for brewing, but White Labs did find a strain of yeast in Maier’s beard follicles that is viable and perfect for brewing! Haha. I’ve heard of harvesting yeast from beer bottles and carboys, but I’ve definitely never attempted harvesting them from facial hair 🙂 Either way, Rogue is doing test batches with the new strain at the moment, and plan to release their odd new beer sometime in 2013. You can read the full article on Rogue’s website.