BarthHaas Grants 2025 go to research teams in Argentina and Munich

Nuremberg | The world’s leading hop specialist BarthHaas is supporting young scientists again this year with its research promotion prizes, the BarthHaas Grants, each of which is worth EUR 10,000. The company chose the two winning research teams from among twelve applicants.

The winners are a group from the Conicet research unit at the National University of Comahue in Argentina led by Dr. Julieta Burini and a team from the Chair of Brewing and Beverage Technology at the Technical University of Munich (BGT TUM) led by Christoph Neugrodda.

Burini and her colleagues from Argentina and Germany intend to examine the effect of hops on cell multiplication in yeast. Previous experiments have already shown that brewing yeast displays increased cell multiplication in the presence of hops. The object of the new research is now to establish which hop compounds have this effect and to what extent hops can be responsible for more efficient production of starter yeast in the food industry.

Christoph Neugrodda’s project focuses on the question of how hop products – especially protein- and polyphenol-rich fractions – can improve the sensory richness and the mouthfeel of alcohol-free beers. Using soft tribology, the interactions between tongue and palate are simulated in order to measure the friction, and thus the mouthfeel, in objective terms. The central hypothesis is that the bitter compounds, polyphenols, and proteins substantially improve the tribological profile and thus the perception of mouthfeel.

“Both projects impressively demonstrate the great potential that is to be found in hops beyond traditional beer brewing“, enthuses Dr. Christina Schönberger, head of the Brewing Solutions team at BarthHaas, who is very interested to see how the new research findings can contribute to more varied and sustainable hop applications in the future. Ideas such as these and the passion of young scientists are the real driving forces behind research” says Schönberger.

Since 2007, the annually awarded BarthHaas Grants have supported groundbreaking scientific projects at universities and research institutes. In many cases they have served as seed capital: Many successful projects attracted wide attention and could then be continued with public funding. BarthHaas hopes by means of the grants to arouse enthusiasm for hops, support research concepts, and, not least, establish and intensify contacts with promising young research scientists. A lot has happened in hop research in recent years. By awarding the BarthHaas Grants, BarthHaas has consistently given decisive impetus to the field of science.