My understanding is that they couldn’t detect any differences between the yeast sent to space and the same strain that had stayed Earth-bound – and that that was exactly what the brewery’s founders were hoping would happen. So there’s a novelty factor, but that’s about it. Still, I give Ninkasi credit for sending something to space that might reasonably be expected to be affected by the trip. I can’t see any reason to send hops to space for four days except the novelty factor (and, I guess, to raise money for a children’s hospital, which isn’t nothing…).
Also, while I have known for years that Ninkasi sent yeast into space, until today I thought it was Ninkasi from Lyon, France. I didn’t even know there was an apparently completely unaffiliated Ninkasi in Eugene, Oregon.
