From my perspective there have been a lot of lawsuits in the US regarding supposed diastaticus 'contamination'. Brewers are saying their pitches were compromised and the supplier is liable for the losses. Whitelabs are saying hey look, a lot of strains now have been found to contain the STA1 gene and could/should be considered diastaticus. Real world usage has always contained an awful lot of variables and often falls under there is no problem until there is a problem. Here in the UK we love cask conditioned beer. It is a wonderful/terrible thing where we ferment beer until 'almost' dry, then crash and/or fine the beer until an acceptable yeast count is reached before racking to cask where secondary fermentation continues to naturally carbonate the cask. The cask is usually rushed to the cellar, where it is allowed to continue fermentation through a very high tech pressure relief valve known as a spile. So many variables! Throw ambient temperature, cellarmanship and so on into the mix. You've breweries with a house yeast which has been used successfully for decades which was previously not known to be diastaticus now worrying although no problem has been encountered because the secondary fermentation is so slow with such a low yeast count at such low temperatures with rapid cellaring over the typical time frame for consumption. See how that works out when they start putting a year shelf life on a short run of 'craft' cans or do a split cask and keg batch and have a warm warehouse in the summer however!
For me, I know where the house yeast has come from, I know where it has been and I know how it performs. I have a pretty big hunch that it is diastaticus and always has been. Reading that article, I'm like ... oh snap I can autoclave some media and plate that out like ... now? Why does it matter if there isn't a problem? Because brewers are control freaks. We also bottle and can, though rarely put more than 6 months shelf life on them.
Hunch? Recipes should finish at 1.006-1.008, dutifully into casks they go at 8-10. Regularly beer sampled on the bar, especially in summer is as low as 1.003? Regularly surprised by IPA's mashed at 67C that go from 1.052 to 1.004, what is this? 91-92% attenuation?
