So I was thinking, the Germans have very region specific brews because of local yeast and practices. I took this idea in my head and flipped it to ask, is it possible to do something like that again? To gather yeast from your environment and produce a unique style that isn't sour or odd tasting? It just blows my mind that these beers were so region specific and that brewer's were able to do this before yeast was even discovered as a microorganism. Basically would it be possible to culture a new and relatively clean yeast to make a unique modern region specific brew?
Yes, it's possible, sort of. There are lots of wild yeast strains in, well, the wild. A lot of them are Brettanomyces or other strains which are unlikely to make "relatively clean" beer. Some are Saccharomyces strains, which would have a better chance. If you want to try this, you'll have to isolate and propagate the yeast from the assortment of bugs (Brett strains, bacteria) you'll likely collect at the same time. Do some research on streak plating. If you can capture and isolate a Sacch strain, it might make a good beer. But it's more likely to have fermentation or off flavor issues. If so, you might be able to evolve the yeast over many years of collected mutations, possibly moving it toward a good brewing strain that has also adapted to your personal ("regional") process. Now, if you drop your requirement for "relatively clean" and settle for just "unique," I think you'd have a slightly better chance for success. But even then, I have doubts about being able to come up with something truly unique flavor-wise. It seems to me that most of the useful naturally occurring genes that cause variations in yeast performance/flavors are probably already available in the hundreds of commercially available strains. I suspect that any really unique (and useful) changes will come from genetic engineering, with gene changes that are unable/unlikely to spring up naturally.
Culturing local wild yeast seems like a fun and healthy hobby for anyone with the time / space / kit / patience for it and I wouldn't discourage anyone from trying it. On the other hand, I always feel the need to push back a bit on the idea that unique local brewing traditions are all about water chemistry / agriculture / microbiology. As far as I can see, the really important thing is the focus and the feedback loop between producers and consumers - the fact that a Kolsch brauhaus in Cologne will be selling beer to people who've been drinking good quality Kolsch on a daily basis for years, and that the people brewing there will also have been drinking it on a daily basis for years, and will have learnt their trade over years of brewing Kolsch with other expert Kolsch brewers in specialist Kolsch breweries. Under those circumstances it's kind of to be expected that they'll be more consistently good at it than breweries for whom it's a bit of a one-off novelty. So in that respect, when people talk about wanting to produce something unique and distinctive from scratch, I've got a lot more interest in people who are trying to do it by specialization and repetition and refinement of particular beers than in the whole local ingredients / local yeast routine.
