The Origins Of Lager Yeast

From last year in Fast Company:

The modern-day lager yeast is a hybrid, born from an ancient hookup between a Saccharomyces cerevisiae--a popular ingredient for brewers and bakers--and another yeast that Diego Libkind and his company have identified and named Sacchyromyces eubyanus. They published their study in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers surmise that at some time after the 16th century, S. eubayanus hitched a ride from South America to Europe with the traveling tradesmen, and fused with S. cerevisiae to create the lager yeast. Bavarian brewers discovered this hybrid and delighted to find that unlike ale yeasts, this species thrived under cold conditions. (This infographic has more on the difference between an ale and a lager.)
While the stowaway story makes for a fascinating tale, the discovery of the lager yeast's parentage has implications for brewers. Diego Libkind, the primary researcher on the study, is already tapping into some of these ideas. With funding from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET), an Argentinian government institution that funds scientific research, Libkind is working on collaborating with a local brewery to test the capabilities of other, non-lager S. eubayanus lines that didn’t make it into the lager hybrid.
“We're trying to see if we can generate a local project,” Libkind tells Fast Company.
The original S. eubayanus-cerevisiae pairing was a lucky accident. But with several similar yeast strains with as yet undiscovered talents as brewers, Libkind plans to test other combinations of yeasts. “It's anyone's guess how good those products will be,” Christopher Todd Hittinger, co-author on the paper, says.

Thank God for lager yeast.  It helps me get through this absurd world.  When I was doing a minor home brewing project, one of the discouraging things was that the yeast supplied was an ale yeast, which meant the fermenting beer was supposed to be kept at room temperature.  That was a major issue in my house in the winter.  The company I bought supplies from eventually came out with a lager yeast which would have done wonders for my project, but I got away from the project.