Increased demand for hops worldwide for many years has resulted in the breeding of hop plants and consequent development of new varieties with ever increasing alpha acid concentrations. This trend was accompanied by the introduction of 2 new classifications, one called “High-Alpha varieties”, the other called “Super-High-Alpha varieties”.

Barth-Haas Grants 2007 – New findings in hop research

Hops is one of the most interesting research fields world-wide and hitherto we are not even close to discover the whole range of possible applications for hops. In 2007 the Barth-Haas Group started to award each year grants to support hop research projects. These grants are meant for the Diploma thesis, master thesis or seminar papers of students who are working on a project concerning hops and its application in brewing. Theses that have been finished meanwhile, about flavour stability, sensory evaluation methods, hop harvest in belarus etc. impressingly demonstrate the wide range of hop research.

Brasil Brau 2009

With different styles, scents and flavours, the Brazilian beer market is an excellent business. In volume, the country is currently only behind China, United States, Germany, and Russia. According to the last survey by Sindicato Nacional da Indústria da Cerveja (Sindicerv – National Beer Industry Syndicate), the Brazilian market has produced 10.34 billion litres of beer in 2007. Consumption per capita was of 56 litres. The sector has earned R$ 25.8 billion and invested R$ 3 billion in the last five years.

For brewers, the most important compounds of hops are the alpha acids. During wort boiling the insoluble alpha-acids isomerise to soluble iso-alpha acids which are the main bittering compounds in beer. Depending on hop variety and hop product, there are several soluble unspecific resins other than the iso-alpha acids which contribute to beer bitterness. The content of “non alpha bitterness” can be shown by comparing the unspecific EBC 7.5 method with the specific HPLC method used for the determination of alpha acids (EBC 7.7). The ratios of these two methods are demonstrated in figure 1 and 2 for fresh aroma and bitter hops: ...

The International Subcommittee for Isomerized Hop a-Acids Standards (ISIHAS), announces the release of a new calibration standard, ICS-I3, for the HPLC analysis of iso-¦Á-acids. This standard replaces ICS-I2, which is now withdrawn.

BrewingScience - Monatsschrift für Brauwissenschaft, 62 ( January/February) 2009, p. 25

Aroma wheels provide a terminology for the sensory description of products. They were developed to help people responsible for quality control and product development to communicate using unambiguous terminology.

Samples of barley grains from 10 varieties and 8 locations were analysed on 48 mineral nutrients and 13 malt quality parameters. The article presents means, ranges of variation and (expanded) measurement uncertainties. For many elements a significant influence of varieties could be found. The statistical analysis includes the calculation of coefficients of correlation between the element content and the quality parameters using a covariance analysis in order to eliminate the variety effects (partial coefficent rp). The closest positve rp (adjusted by varieties) to malt quality have been found for K, Pb, Mo and Na. Most of minerals correlate negatively to the malt quality index, especially Zn (rp = –0,67), Mg (rp = –0,47) and Fe (rp = –0,43)..

Due to a shortage of hops in crop 2008, many breweries used Isomerized Kettle Extract instead of regular CO2 extracts to save alpha acids. This worked very well and most of the brewers who used IKE for crop 2008 plan to continue doing so for crop 2009, even though hops are again available in larger quantities.

Drink Technology India 08 – In the firing line

The 2007 debut could certainly be regarded as successful. The second drink technology India, organised by Messe München (Munich Exhibitions), which took place on November 27th and 28th, 2008 in the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Mumbai, India, was meant to build on this success. Many foreign exhibitors had come to Mumbai in order to present their technology to visitors or to exchange information in the conferences and exhibitor forums held in parallel. These peaceful intentions were shattered by the terrible acts of terror in Mumbai on the eve of the exhibition. Fortunately, all participants came away uninjured, some exhibitors had accommodation in the hotels affected.

The role of ns-LTP1 and proteases in causing primary gushing

ns-LTP1 belongs to the non-specific protein class of lipid transfer proteins (ns-LPTs) that are ubiquitous in plants. ns-LPT1 that occurs, in particular, in the aleurone layer of cereal grains in high concentrations, most probably with a role to play in pathogen defence, shows characteristics (molecular weight, isoelectric point, amphoteric character) that predestine the protein to be a main trigger for the emergence of primary gushing, in line with the literature published on gushing. The hypothesis postulated in 2002 by Hippeli and Elstner [1] has been verified in the context of AiF Projects 13468 N and 14551 N.

Heterogeneous spring barley in the EU