LACTOBACILLUS AMYLOLYTICUS SP. NOV., ISOLATED FROM BEER MALT AND BEERWORT

Some of the strains used for the biological acidification in breweries belong to L. delbruleckii subsp. delbrueckii, L. delbrueckii subsp. l actis or L. fermentum. However, more recent studies showed that most s trains isolated are physiologically different from the above mentioned species and were tentatively allocated to Lactobacillus amylovorus. G enotypic studies of 25 strains exclusively isolated from beer malts an d beer worts, showed, that there were differences to the type strain o f L. amylovorus concerning DNA-DNA similarities and the sequences of t heir 16S and 23S rRNA genes. Therefore, we propose to combine these st rains in a new species of the genus Lactobacillus, namely L. amylolyti cus. Strain DSM 11664 is proposed as the type strain. An rRNA targeted oligonucleotide probe was designed that allows a fast and reliable id entification of Lactobacillus amylolyticus.