Both the market for alcohol-free beer and the number of craft-beer breweries increased in the past years. Thus, dry-hopping of beer and also of alcohol-free beer is gaining more and more interest. To better understand the transfer of odorants from hops into alcohol-free beer during dry-hopping, their amounts were analyzed over a period of 7 days. During a lab-scale experiment that simulated the dry-hopping process, major transfer was found within the first 2-3 days. However, the importance of the transferred key aroma-active compounds to the overall aroma can only be evaluated by taking their sensory properties into account. For this purpose, orthonasal odor thresholds and sensorial dose-response relationships were investigated for selected key odorants in an alcohol-free beer matrix. Thereby, sensory tests revealed a nearly linear increase in the odor intensity of several esters, while further typical hop key odorants, e.g., linalool, geraniol, and myrcene, showed a multi-stage increase.<br/>The lecture will demonstrate that the technique of dry-hopping can be influenced, for example by the hop dosage and the contact time, to optimize the overall aroma of beer. Thus, brewers will have the opportunity to follow the wishes expected by consumers to obtain a desired specific flavor of the final product.

Dry-hopping as a general tool to influence the concentrations of key odorants in beer as well as to optimize the overall aroma of alcohol-free beer

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.