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There have been many beer-spoilage incidents caused by wild yeasts. Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Dekkera anomala and D. bruxellensis have been recognized as beer-spoilage yeasts in the brewing industry. In contrast, the beer spoilage ability of Brettanomyces custersianus has not been well characterized, although this species was isolated from beer. In this study, the beer-spoilage ability of currently described Dekkera/Brettanomyces yeast species was investigated. As a consequence, D. anomala, D. bruxellensis and B. custersianus were shown to grow in commercial beers. On the other hand, the remaining two Brettanomyces species, B. naardenensis and B. nanus, did not grow in beer. These results indicate that B. custersianus should be recognized as a beer-spoilage species, in addition to S. cerevisiae, D. anomala, and D. bruxellensis. Therefore we developed multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the simultaneous detection and identification of B. custersianus and the other beer-spoilage yeast species. For this purpose, PCR primers were designed in the internal transcribed spacer region or 26S rDNA, and each PCR product was made in different sizes to easily discriminate the species from electrophoretic results. Specificity, reactivity and sensitivity of the designed primers were evaluated. As a result, the developed multiplex PCR method was shown to have high specificity and reactivity, and therefore was considered as an effective tool to identify beer-spoilage yeast species. This tool can contribute to microbiological quality assurance in breweries. Copyright © 2015 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]