Today in 2001, US Patent WO 2001040514 A1 was issued, an invention of Makiko Jibiki, assigned to Asahi Breweries, Ltd., for his “Method of Judging Flocculating Properties of Bottom Brewer’s Yeast.” Here’s the Abstract:

A method of easily evaluating the flocculating properties of bottom brewer’s yeast within a short period of time at a high reproducibility without carrying out fermentation. This method is characterized by using the ORF sequence of a flocculation gene FLO5 of a laboratory yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.