Frothy or smooth, bitter or sweet, light or dark: There’s a beer for most palates. As people around the world pour over the best brews at Oktoberfest celebrations or ferment about their favorite fall-themed beers, three papers published in ACS journals crack open new insights into these beverages. And if you’re hop-ing to conduct studies to find which beer is good for what ales you, please drink responsibly. Reporters can request free access to these papers by emailing newsroom@acs.org.
- Coriander’s origin changes beer flavor. Just like simmering a stew, brewing a beer with herbs and spices can enhance its flavor. A study in ACS Food Science & Technology reports that coriander seeds harvested from different countries (Bulgaria, Canada, Morocco and India) impart varying amounts of sweet, herbal and/or cooling flavors in Belgian white beers. The research group found that adding three compounds specific to Bulgarian coriander seeds could also enhance flowery characteristics in a model beer they created.
- Barley proteins impact hop bitterness. Researchers in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry explored how malt from two different barley cultivars interacted with hop extracts during the wort-boiling stage of the brewing process. They found that wort prepared from the higher-protein barley malt had lower acid levels, which suggests the proteins trap and remove some of the bitter-tasting hop compounds that influence the beer’s final flavor. The researchers say these results could help brewers tailor the taste of their suds; for example, they could select low-protein barley for a hoppy beer.
- Testing microbes for a probiotic beer. Functional beverages, such as prebiotic sodas, kombucha and fermented dairy drinks, are popular right now. To create a probiotic beer, researchers screened several different lactic acid-producing bacterial strains. Their comprehensive brewing experiments published in ACS Food Science & Technology demonstrated that five of the 21 strains tested could reach cellular counts associated with probiotic activity. But these counts were only reached in lightly hopped beers (below 2 international bitterness units (IBUs), a level that’s insufficient to give beer its signature bitterness). The next step for the researchers is testing the viability of the probiotic bacteria after carbonation, storage and consumption.
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