LIPIDS IN WORT

Insights into chemical and sensorial aspects to understand and manage beer aging using chemometrics

Beer chemical instability remains, at present, the main challenge in maintaining beer quality. Although not fully understood, after decades of research, significant progress has been made in identifying "aging compounds," their origin, and formation pathways. However, as the nature of aging relies on beer manufacturing aspects such as raw materials, process variables, and storage conditions, the chemical profile differs among beers. Current research points to the impact of nonoxidative reactions on beer quality. The effect of Maillard and Maillard intermediates on the final beer quality has become the focus of beer aging research, as prevention of oxidation can only sustain beer quality to some extent. On the other hand, few studies have focused on tracing a profile of whose compound is sensory relevant to specific types of beer. In this matter, the incorporation of "chemometrics," a class of multivariate statistic procedures, has helped brewing scientists achieve specific correlations between the sensory profile and chemical data. The use of chemometrics as exploratory data analysis, discrimination techniques, and multivariate calibration techniques has made the qualitatively and quantitatively translation of sensory perception of aging into manageable chemical and analytical parameters. However, despite their vast potential, these techniques are rarely employed in beer aging studies. This review discusses the chemical and sensorial bases of beer aging. It focuses on how chemometrics can be used to their full potential, with future perspectives and research to be incorporated in the field, enabling a deeper and more specific understanding of the beer aging picture.

On the origin of free and bound staling aldehydes in beer

The chemistry of beer flavor instability remains shrouded in mystery, despite decades of extensive research. It is, however, certain that aldehydes play a crucial role because their concentration increase coincides with the appearance and intensity of "aged flavors". Several pathways give rise to a variety of key flavor-active aldehydes during beer production, but it remains unclear as to what extent they develop after bottling. There are indications that aldehydes, formed during beer production, are bound to other compounds, obscuring them from instrumental and sensory detection. Because freshly bottled beer is not in chemical equilibrium, these bound aldehydes might be released over time, causing stale flavor. This review discusses beer aging and the role of aldehydes, focusing on both sensory and chemical aspects. Several aldehyde formation pathways are taken into account, as well as aldehyde binding in and release from imine and bisulfite adducts.

Dual positional and stereospecificity of lipoxygenase isoenzymes from germinating barley (green malt): biotransformation of free and esterified linoleic acid

The lipoxygenase isoenzymes LOX1 and LOX2 from green malt were separated by isoelectric focusing, and their catalytic properties regarding complex lipids as substrates were characterized. The regio- and stereoisomers of hydroperoxy octadecadienoates (HPODE) resulting from LOX1 and LOX2 enzymatic transformations of linoleic acid, methyl linoleate, linoleic acid glycerol esters monolinolein, dilinolein, and trilinolein, and 1-palmitoyl-2-linoleoyl-glycero-3-phosphocholine (PamLinGroPCho) were determined. In addition, biotransformations of polar and nonpolar lipids extracted from malt were performed with LOX1 and LOX2. The results show that LOX2 catalyzes the oxidation of esterified fatty acids at a higher rate and is more regioselective than LOX1. The dual position specificity of LOX2 (9-HPODE:13-HPODE) with trilinolein as the substrate (6:94) was higher than the resultant ratio (13:87) when free linoleic acid was transformed. A high (S)-enantiomeric excess of 13-HPODE was analyzed with all esterified substrates confirming the formation of 13-HPODE through the LOX2 enzyme; however, 9-HPODE detected after LOX2 biotransformations showed (R)-enantiomeric excesses. PamLinGroPCho was oxygenated by LOX1 with the highest regio- and stereoselectivities among the applied substrates.