Abstract
This review reports recent knowledge on the role of ingredients (barley, hop and yeasts), including genetic factors, on the final yield of phenolic compounds in beer, and how these molecules generally affect resulting beer attributes, focusing mainly on new attempts at the enrichment of beer phenols, with fruits or cereals other than barley. An entire section is dedicated to health-related effects, analyzing the degree up to which studies, investigating phenols-related health effects of beer, have appropriately considered the contribution of alcohol (pure or spirits) intake. For such purpose, we searched Scopus.com for any kind of experimental model (in vitro, animal, human observational or intervention) using beer and considering phenols. Overall, data reported so far support the existence of the somehow additive or synergistic effects of phenols and ethanol present in beer. However, findings are inconclusive and thus deserve further animal and human studies.
Highlights
Beer is a natural drink and historical evidences indicate a common use since ancient times for medical and religious purposes [1]
Group differences in a female sub-population were found, but only an alcoholic beer was tested. They looked for circulating endothelial progenitor cells (EPC) and reported that non-alcoholic beer consumption increased the number of circulating EPCs by 5 units, while in the alcoholic beer group, the increase was 8-fold
The alcoholic beer improved other plasma lipid and inflammation markers and decreased fibrinogen and interleukin 5, but the effects were ascribed to alcohol as identical effects were observed following administration of a gin dose containing the same amount of alcohol (30 g)
Summary
Beer is a natural drink and historical evidences indicate a common use since ancient times for medical and religious purposes [1]. Beer is the most consumed alcoholic beverage in the EU and annual per capita consumption (L/year) has sharply increased in the Czech Republic (141 L), US (50–80 L) and France (33 L) [3]. Such a level of consumption has led some research to focus on the nutritional appropriateness of beer, merely considering health aspects like, for example, the intake of minerals [4] or the ability to prevent dysbiosis [5], properties present in other beverages. This review focusses more deeply on most recent advances on the role of phenolic compounds on affecting human health status, considering how seriously researchers have tackled the effects of alcohol
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