LILLE 2024

Professional brewers have been consciously brewing beers in distinctly different styles for as long as beer has been a commercial product. Within the industry, prize-awarding competitions based on best-in-style, have existed at least since the 1880s, while the first global attempt to classify beers for consumers is attributed to Michael Jackson, in The World Guide to Beer (1976). There has never been and may never be a single, formally agreed international classification of beer styles, though the recent rise in prestigious and not-so-prestigious Awards is matched by efforts to standardise these. Consumer champion, author and beer judge Tim Webb and his co-presenter, Nebraska-born, German-trained Braumeister Eric Toft will look at the driving forces behind beer styling, their direction of travel, why they matter to product planning, and what professional brewers need to know before taking the multi-style approach to brewing.

Artificial intelligence based on computational chemistry is a promising technique to develop new products. Commonly used for pharma, it can also be used in food industry to identify molecules with functional activities or specific flavours, reducing the experimental analysis to launch a new product.
Beer flavour and aroma are greatly influenced by hops employed in the brewing process. Iso-α-acids are the main responsible for bitterness, which are detected by bitter taste receptors (TAS2Rs) in oral taste buds. TAS2Rs are activated in the presence of bitter molecules, which send chemical signals to the brain, allowing to differentiate if the detected molecules have a pleasant taste or not. It is of interest to predict the behaviour of hop compounds towards TAS2R so that the bitterness of different hop varieties can be predicted based on quantitative analysis of composition.
In this work, α and β-acids, iso-α-acids, and prenylflavonoids are analysed by docking and molecular dynamics techniques, and xanthohumol is identified to have the highest bitter profile. These tools will soon enable the design of beverages with customised flavours, reducing the need for experimental evaluation.

Most Japanese beer dispensers are equipped with a unique tap for serving creamy foam. When pouring beer into a glass using this tap, a layer of fine bubbles, called frosty mist (FM), is generated at the liquid–foam interface. In the presence of FM, beer foam is regenerated due to the mixing liquid beer and FM when the glass is tilted. This intriguing phenomenon has hardly been investigated. In this study, we established novel methods for evaluating foam regeneration ability (FRA) and FM and investigated the relationship between them. First, we compared FRA among Japanese commercial beers using our developed method that measures the amount of foam before and after tilting the glass. Interestingly, we observed clear differences in the FRA of these beers but no correlation between the FRA and NIBEM values. Second, we developed a novel FM evaluation method using two-dimensional colorimetry and quantitatively confirmed that high FM amounts positively impact FRA. In addition, we explained how the interfacial state at the beer liquid–foam interface affects FRA. Finally, we developed an improved tap system exhibiting higher FRA by combining our research efforts and tap design technologies.

The growing demand for healthier beverages and the brewing industry’s commitment to reducing alcohol’s adverse effects have spurred interest in innovative non-alcoholic beer (NAB) brands. Health-conscious consumers are the driving force, with flavor being crucial. However, industry bias persists. In 2023, ten global NAB brands were extensively evaluated at two international meetings. Industry experts assessed sensory profiles, perceptions, and preferences. Comprehensive chemical profiling, including non-volatile (e.g., bitterness units, alcohol by volume, residual extract) and volatile analysis (GC-MS and GC-SCD), revealed that both volatile and non-volatile compounds played pivotal roles in shaping specific flavor profiles, influencing industry preferences. The perception of ‘Beer-like’ qualities varied among the products. Notably, production techniques significantly determined NAB’s chemical and flavor profiles. This insight empowers the industry to design NABs with more appealing and stable flavors in line with evolving consumer preferences.