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Beer Testing Solutions

Beer is a popular beverage consisting of four main ingredients: grain (mostly malted barley), hops that come in a wide assortment, yeast for fermentation, and water, which accounts for up to 95% of the finished product. Each of these four ingredients is responsible for a number of beer's attributes.

Although simple in concept, beer is a highly complex mixture of many compounds including sugars, proteins, alcohols, esters, acids, ketones, acids and terpenes.

It is therefore important to know what happens at every step of the brewing process, to make sure that all the ingredients are free of contaminants or adulterants and the quality of the product is consistent with the expectations.

Beer Related Content

Beer Related Content

Elemental Analysis of Beer by Flame Atomic Absorption with the PinAAcle 900

This work demonstrates the ability to measure several elements in beer with Flame atomic absorption using the PinAAcle 900. No significant differences were observed between beers in glass bottles or metal cans.

Aroma Characterization of Hops

Hops are a critical ingredient in beer. Aroma characterization of hops is complex;there are many compounds in hops that contribute to flavor. This application note describes a system that is able to provide both an objective chemical analysis of hop aroma using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and, at the same time, provide the means for the user to monitor the olfactory character of each component as it elutes from the chromatographic column. Such an approach allows the user to gain a fuller characterization of a particular hop sample.

Determination of a-acids in Hops and Beers

One essential aspect of the quality control in beer brewing is making sure that the type and amount of a-acids are the same from batch to batch, and that their transformation into the bitter iso-a-acids during the brewing process gives individual brand its recognizable taste consistently . This application note presents a straightforward method to determine the type and amount of a-acids in pellets from five hops varieties. An American IPA beer is analyzed to confirm the presence of isomerized a-acids.

Monitoring Volatile Organic Compounds in Beer Production Using the Clarus SQ 8 GC/MS and TurboMatrix Headspace Trap Systems

This application note describes a system comprising a headspace trap sampler to extract and concentrate VOCs from a beer sample and deliver them to a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC/MS) for separation, identification and quantification.

The Analysis of Lactic and Acetic Acids in Sour Beers by HPLC with PDA Detection

This work pursued an effective, efficient and robust HPLC method for the quantitative analysis of lactic and acetic acid in beers by HPLC with PDA detection.

The Determination of Low Levels of Nitrosamines in Beer Using the Clarus 680 GC/MS and D-Swafer

Nitrosamines are a class of compounds that are often found in food and other organic products. They are highly carcinogenic and many countries apply controls on the acceptable levels of these compounds in food. The method presented in this application note uses a very simple and straightforward single-step extraction procedure with a minimum of solvent. The combination of the heartcut technique and the fast cooling oven and PSS injector of the Clarus 680 enables the total chromatographic cycle time to be reduced to less than 20 minutes.

Beer Related Technologies

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