Greetings,
I've often cloned yeast from bottles of beer I've enjoyed (both homebrew and
commercial), with good results. But I've heard that if you clone the same
yeast too many times, mutations result that affect the flavor of the beer.
A few questions come to mind:
* Is this true?
* On average, how many times might I expect to be able to clone a yeast
colony before it is significantly different from the original strain?
* What is the nature of the mutations? i.e., What sort of flavor changes or
other behavior might I expect? Don't wanna brew no skunky beer :)
* How do the yeast labs (Wyeast, White Labs, etc.) perpetuate their yeast
strains without the same thing happening to them?
* Finally: Maybe mutations aren't always a bad thing. Has any of our group
deliberately mutated a yeast strain so as to "encourage" mutation in a
certain direction?

Best Regards,
Bill Bell