Why Humulinones are Key Bitter Constituents Only After Dry Hopping: Comparison With Other Belgian Styles

Abstract

Although long renowned worldwide for its unique dry-hopped (DH) Trappist beer, Belgium did not develop this process for other brands until the last decade. Twenty-one commercial Belgian DH beers were investigated and compared with a few other typical Belgian beers whose production involves either late hopping or aged hop addition (Gueuze). Bitterness was determined by spectrophotometric measurements (isooctane extraction) and by reversed phase high performance liquid chromatographic with UV detector (RP-HPLC-UV) (simultaneous quantitation of humulones, cis-/trans-isohumulones, reduced isohumulones, humulinones, and hulupones). In dry-hopped Belgian beers, humulinones (found at concentrations up to 13.3 mg/L) were estimated to be responsible for up to 28% of their bitterness. As humulinones revealed to be gradually lost through boiling (22%), clarification (5%), and fermentation (14%), non-dry-hopped (NDH) beers often displayed levels below 1.7 mg/L. Even in Gueuze beers for which old, humulinone-containing hops are used, no humulinone was found. Contrary to humulones, which were detected up to 7.2 mg/L in DH beers, hulupones were found at less than 3 mg/L in all Belgian beer styles. Humulinones were not produced in the boiling wort from humulones (in contrast to hulupones, readily synthesized from lupulones) but were significantly solubilized from hop thanks to their hydrophilicity. Yet, while the co-form accounted for about 50% of the humulones, the n-form prevailed for humulinones. Some humulinone degradation products were evidenced by RP-HPLC-MS/MS, and as suggested by their retention time (RT), should be more polar than their precursors. Bottle refermentation emerged as an additional critical step of humulinone loss, explaining the low levels found even in some strongly DH beers.