Today we’d like to introduce you to Mara Young.
Hi Mara, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Community Cultures Yeast Lab is a family-owned business in central San Antonio. The idea first started when my husband and partner Rob Green, received his Bachelor’s of Science in Biology at the University of the Incarnate Word, with concentrations in Microbiology, Biochemistry, and Genetics, and where he first started working with yeast in his lab courses. He continued his research at University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio in Genetics and Protein Physiology, designing human protein production and isolation protocols for various projects by genetically transforming bacteria and yeast. With a love for craft beer already, he started connecting his background with yeast to specialize in fermentation and yeast propagation. It made perfect sense for him to blend this experience with his passion for craft beer and start a yeast lab. I came into the picture to help develop that passion into a business. I also came with ten years of administrative experience, public speaking, sales and marketing, and management expertise. We both had a passion for nature and sustainability, and so the pieces began to fall together rather quickly and Community Cultures was born.
We both had a love for craft beer and for the food and beverage industry. Rob worked in breweries to put himself through college and saw behind the scenes for many years. The one thing that always confused and inspired him was the fact that there were so few “American” yeast strains. Other than the California “Chico” strain, for the most part breweries were using Belgian yeast for Belgian beers and French Saison yeast to make Saisons. There weren’t really a lot of choices for American yeast strains for American beer styles. With so much knowledge in yeast health, growth, and propagation, he decided to change that! He and I began a mission to travel, especially in Texas, and see if we could find and isolate pure strains of Saccharomyces Cerivesie, not from breweries or from other yeast labs, but directly from the earth and from the Texas landscape. From there, the vision just continued to grow, along with our catalog, until today where we have a wide variety of traditional commercial yeast strains for every different style from IPAs to lagers, but we also have mixed cultures, bacteria, Brett, Lacto, and one of a kind unique Texas yeast strains.
Today we serve Texas and most of the southwest region, and we are expanding soon into Mexico and Central America. We serve breweries from 1BBL up to 120BBL. In addition to yeast, we offer ABV testing, microbiological testing and full lab support, classes and education, and yeast for the homebrewing community.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There’s little to no map for designing and opening a yeast lab, and it had certainly never been done in Texas before. In fact, the yeast industry is extremely proprietary in general, and there were no resources to help get us started. We knew the science, but we didn’t yet know the manufacturing, packaging, and shipping side of things. We had to design everything from scratch, which means that we couldn’t just get online and order equipment from a catalog, we had to customize much of it ourselves. There were several years of trial and error, working from home and on the weekends… often into the night hours.
Once we had our business plan in place and began to look for a commercial building, we met resistance from the city. They didn’t understand what we were doing, they couldn’t decide if we were a medical lab or a brewery. City code inspectors were just as confused, and while trying to establish our Certificate of Occupancy, we met just as much confusion, which was often followed by impatience. We found that it was easier for the city to tell us “no” than to admit that they simply didn’t understand what we were doing. We were told “no” more times than I can possibly count, often coupled with laughter, eye rolling, and flat out rudeness. However, we pushed on, knowing full well that it worked in other states.
Eventually, we found a flex space where we started our business on a smaller scale. From there, we grew, and we moved again into our current building, expanded our equipment, and upgraded our protocols. Now we are expanding again, and I’m grateful that we learned from these experiences early on.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Community Cultures is a full-service yeast and fermentation lab. We specialize in all yeast strains for the brewing, distilling, wine, baking, fermented foods and kombucha industries. We are most known for our brewer’s yeast and we work with many breweries in Texas and in the southwest US. We are known as a “one stop shop” for our clients, as we offer both the yeast to ferment their beer, as well as lab services, educational services, consulting, yeast banking, and custom projects. We’re often very close to our brewers and get to know them and their team. It’s not unusual that we will drive their yeast directly to them as a surprise visit or to brew with them for the day!
I manage the website and the yeast catalog, I also specialize in customer service, handle most yeast orders and invoicing, our social media, marketing, as well as any sponsorships and special events.
We are most known for our larger yeast strains, our hazy IPA yeast, and our neutral strains like the “Cali Girl.” We’re known for our extremely fresh product, high cell counts, variety of classic and rare strains, as well as customization.
Contact Info:
- Email: Mara@texascultures.community
- Website: www.ccyeastlab.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/communityculturesyeastlab/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/communitycultures
