LILLE 2024

Efficient process control when using a proline specific protease (PEP) and the corresponding colloidal beer stability are obtained by gluten quantification through lateral flow device (LFD) technology. The speed of this methodology leads to more efficient process and quality control.
Beer, especially lagers are intended to remain clear until consumption. The highest risk for the colloidal stability is the unwanted interaction of proteins and polyphenols, which can be suppressed using a PEP.
Prolamins are the main component of gluten and studies have shown that gluten proteins in beer correlates with haze. As the PEP is degrading prolamins, it was decided to investigate the correlation between gluten content and haze potential in beers produced with PEP. The results showed a high correlation suggesting that measurements of prolamin concentration (gluten) could be an excellent tool for predicting colloidal beer stability.
The PEP is applied in the fermenting vessel sometimes accompanied by ALDC enzyme. This study showed that the PEP enzyme must have a very high specificity in order not to impair the ALDC performance and diacetyl control during fermentation.

Beers and other low pH beverages are often stabilised by pasteurisation, but there is a lack of guidance as to how many pasteurisation units are required for effective treatment of novel products, and how to avoid over-pasteurisation. Yeast are common hardy spoilers of such beverages, and some species can produce heat-resistant ascospores. Ascospores are more heat-tolerant than vegetative cells and ideal bioindicators for validating effective beverage pasteurisation processes. Yeast ascospores have been used successfully for pasteurisation optimisation of alcohol free, premium beers and other beverages.
In this presentation, key findings from the past five years of research in this subject will be presented including current and future research scope.

Most of the beer in the world is filtered and is likely to remain so, however within sectors of the brewing world, customer expectations for beer clarity are hazier. Appearance is still an important quality parameter but there is a greater variation in clarity goals and there are multiple approaches to achieve high quality beer. France as host to this year’s event has a dynamic brewing industry and many of the smaller breweries are choosing to produce unfiltered beer styles.
Brewing education and culture has a sizable impact on the operations and the technologies employed. There are many excellent resources such as the EBC manual of good practice for filtration and stabilisation for conventional beer processing. “Fining-another way” will explore other approaches taken by craft, micro and traditional breweries employing finings for clarification.
Fining mechanisms and operational best practice will be discussed along with common stabilisation combinations. Current examples for utilising finings without filtration will be presented including cask conditioned beer, common craft strategies & the limitations and challenges with unfiltered beer production.