Mizunara oak, a rare and costly Japanese oak, poses challenges for whisky cask production due to limited availability. The coopering process of Mizunara oak casks often produces small pieces of wood unsuitable for cask-making. This study investigates the use of the small pieces as inner staves within ex-Bourbon casks to economically and sustainably produce Mizunara oak-matured whiskies. A 12-week accelerated maturation experiment was conducted with four sets of lab-scale vessels, using Mizunara and American oak cubes as inner staves. Two sets of bell jar vessels mimicked commercial casks with either Mizunara or American oak inner staves, while two mason jar sets compared the effects of Mizunara oak alone with the combined Mizunara and American oak. Accelerated maturation was achieved with a surface area to volume ratio of 260 cm2/L, 2.7 times higher than in typical 200 L casks. Samples were analysed every 4 wk for alcohol content, colour and flavour development. In the bell jars, Mizunara oak impacted maturation with higher concentrations of key congeners. Sensory analysis revealed distinct differences between spirits matured with Mizunara versus American oak. In the mason jars, minimal differences were observed between Mizunara-only and combined oak samples. The study suggests Mizunara oak inner staves have a notable effect on whisky maturation, whether used alone or combined with American oak. Using such small pieces as inner staves appears to be a promising method for producing Mizunara oak-derived flavour in whiskies. This approach promotes sustainable bioresource management by utilizing cooperage by-products, potentially applicable to other valuable wood species.

Has the territorial concentration of hop production in the world increased? Has there been an increase in hop production in cooler temperature and higher rainfall hop regions as would be expected due to global warming? How has hop production developed in countries with different levels of the hop industry? These are some of the questions that the article tries to answer. The article is mainly based on data from BarthHass reports from 1990 to 2022. The analysis shows that the United States and German hop regions were responsible for the significant increase in the territorial concentration of production in the world, while in many countries with a tradition of growing hops, production weakened or even ended. Despite global warming, production has increased mainly in hop regions with somewhat higher temperatures and low rainfall. For the development of hop farming in individual countries and hop regions, the maturity of their hop industry is important. It is mainly about the level of breeding and cultivation of hops and the level of hop research.

The study aims to enhance sustainability in the brewing industry by exploring the use of legumes as eco-friendly substitutes for barley, given their lower greenhouse gas emissions. The physicochemical properties of Congress wort made from both raw and malted forms of five legumes were investigated: red lentil, beluga lentil, green peas, fava bean, and mung bean. These legumes were tested at inclusion levels of 10, 30, 50, and 100% in the mashing process. The effect of adding exogenous enzymes to improve extract yield and filtration efficiency was also tested. Malting the legumes increased extract yield and free amino nitrogen (FAN) concentration while decreasing polyphenol and protein content compared to raw legumes. The malted legumes also had higher concentrations of volatile aroma compounds compared to their raw counterparts. Worts with mung bean had the most distinct aroma profile compared to other legume wort. At lower inclusion levels (10–30%), adding malted legumes did not negatively affect wort quality. However, at a 50% inclusion level, the use of exogenous enzymes improved wort characteristics with more pronounced effects in malted legumes. These findings highlight the potential of locally sourced legumes as sustainable barley alternatives in brewing, even at high inclusion levels. However, the environmental impact of the whole supply chain needs to be clarified in future studies.

In the production of hop-forward India Pale Ales (IPA), the “hop creep” phenomenon, resulting from hop enzyme activities (combined with yeast fermentation), is a major issue in breweries worldwide. In order to improve our knowledge of the parameters that can modulate these enzymatic activities, the present work aimed to assess to what extent hop contact time, incubation temperature, and beer ethanol content can affect the enzymatic activities of hops. To this end, various hop varieties were incubated in beer over a three-week period under different conditions of temperature and ethanol content. Samples were periodically collected to monitor changes in fermentable sugar and fermentation ester concentrations over time. A longer contact time favored α-glucosidase and esterase activities, leading to a higher glucose concentration and lower maltose and isoamyl acetate concentrations. An assay at 50 °C allows predicting this phenomenon more quickly. As expected, dry heat pre-treatment of hop was found to delay glucose release and isoamyl acetate hydrolysis. Ethanol at 10% v/v was required to inhibit hop amylolytic enzymes in beer, but had no effect on hop esterases.

The Pacific Northwest (PNW) region contains approximately 97.5% of U.S. commercial hop acreage. In recent years, wildfire events have been increasing in both number and severity within the region. Currently, there is an extensive body of research from the wine industry on the impact of smoke taint in grapes, however, research investigating smoke taint in hops is limited. This study aims to characterize smoke taint in hops through laboratory simulated wildfire smoke exposure coupled with chemical profiling by nontargeted gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Results reveal that the chemical profiles of smoked hops varied across fuel types. Specifically, several known smoke taint markers, including guaiacol and 4-methylguaiacol, as well as previously unreported compounds such xylopyranose were observed to be elevated in smoked hops compared to controls. This research provides a foundation for future studies to investigate various fuel types and their varying effects on hop quality.

The brewing industry of all sizes is increasingly undertaking various initiatives to comprehend its carbon footprint and to implement measures aimed at mitigating its environmental impacts. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present research for the first time investigates technologies and challenges specific to craft brewers in valorising carbon dioxide (CO2) from beer fermentation. A systematic review was conducted by assessing multiple databases and existing commercial development, leading to the identification of three carbon capture technologies. This involves an existing direct CO2 capture unit, as well as emerging microalgae systems and bicarbonate systems. A summary of these technologies was presented to five craft brewers located in the Rhône-Alpes region of France, before conducting semi-structured interviews with them. All the brewers expressed keen interest in exploring avenues to mitigate their carbon emissions, despite their lack of awareness regarding the presented technologies. The results indicated a clear need for technical training, advertisement campaigns, and governmental support to implement the technologies among craft brewers. Furthermore, to address the concerns raised by the interview participants, a three-level valorisation system was proposed. This system involves the cascading use of CO2, enabling the sharing of investments and resources among technologies at a regional community scale. It is anticipated that the study will serve as a valuable resource for craft brewers as they consider small-scale carbon capture solutions. Additionally, it is expected to provide insights for academic, governmental, and business clusters seeking to build local infrastructure to support the implementation of such technologies.

The present study investigated the nutritional composition, phenolic profile, and antioxidant activity of trub, a byproduct of the brewing industry, for its use in the formulation of aquatic feeds. High performance liquid chromatograph-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS/MS) was used to determine the phenolic compound profile, and 2,2-azinobis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid)/2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (ABTS/DPPH) assays were used to determine the antioxidant activity. Two samples of trub (approximately 500 g) were characterized: sample A, composed of malts Pilsen, Pale Ale, and Caramunich II and hops Herkules and Fuggle, and sample B, composed of malts Pilsen, Pale Ale, and Melanoidin and hops Cascade, Chinook, and Amarillo. The trub B contained carbohydrates and proteins, and its extracts had high total phenolic (754.74 ± 0,08 mg 100 g−1) and total flavonoid (894.71 ± 0.16 mg 100 g−1) contents. In the trub extracts, 21 (trub A) and 19 (trub B) polyphenols were identified, of which 17 and 14 were quantified in trub A and B, respectively. Ferulic and protocatechuic acids were found in greater concentrations, followed by isoquercitrin and p-coumaric acid. With respect to antioxidant activity, trub A showed greater activity in the DPPH assay (2.13 ± 0.01 mg mL−1), whereas trub B showed greater activity in the ABTS assay (29.07 ± 0.15 mg mL−1), which could be related to the content and variety of phenolic compounds in the samples. These results indicate that both trub extracts can be sources of natural antioxidants with significant potential for fish dietary supplementation.

It is well-recognized that the functional properties of proteins and peptides in the food industry not only determine the quality of some food products but also address consumer demands for healthier, safer, and more sustainable food options. Therefore, in this study, functional properties including water-holding capacity, oil-binding capacity, heat stability, turbidity, dispersibility, emulsifying and foaming properties of brewers’ spent grain proteins (BSGP) and their associated hydrolysates were evaluated in the pH range from 2.0 to 12.0. Additionally, the effect of enzymatic hydrolysis using Alcalase and â±­-chymotrypsin on these properties was also determined. Notably, the hydrolysis of intact BSGP significantly improved both water and oil-binding capacity. Similarly, enzymatic hydrolyzation was found to present a positive impact on the heat stability of all tested samples, with the â±­-chymotrypsin hydrolysate from fermented BSGP showing exceptional thermal stability at 140 °C across the entire pH range even after 300 min heating. Turbidity and dispersibility profiles remained consistent across all samples and pH 4 seemed to be a critical point influencing sample behavior. Alcalase hydrolysates displayed an improved emulsion activity index (EAI) with the highest observed EAI of 28.30 ± 0.79 m2 g−1 attained for the Alcalase hydrolysates derived from fermented BSGP at pH 12.0. The maximum foaming capacity (FC) and foaming stability (FS) were observed for all samples at pH 12.0 while hydrolysis significantly reduced the FC and FS. Overall, fermented intact protein, depending on suitable pH, exhibited beneficial functional properties, with potential applications in various food industries.

Wheat is the main raw material in liquor brewing. However, the protein content (PC) and starch content (SC) in wheat will affect the quality and flavor of the final liquor. In this study, the rapid, non-destructive determination of the PC and SC in wheat was achieved by combining hyperspectral imaging (HSI) with a convolutional neural network regression (CNNR) model established using the original spectral data in the hyperspectral images. The best preprocessing method was first determined, and then the performance of CNNR, extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) and partial least squares regression (PLSR) models were compared at full wavelength, and it was concluded that CNNR based on the original spectrum was the optimal model for predicting wheat PC (R-square (R2) = 0.9942, root mean square error (RMSE) = 0.1041, relative percentage difference (RPD) = 13.1306) and SC (R2 = 0.9329, RMSE = 0.8633, RPD = 3.8605) at full wavelength. Finally, to further explore the feature extraction capability of the CNN model, different feature selection and extraction methods are used to build the PLSR model, and the comparison revealed that the PLSR model built by feature extraction using convolutional neural network (CNN_F) performed best in predicting wheat PC and SC. These results showed that HSI combined with a CNNR model could enable the rapid and accurate analysis of the PC and SC in wheat, since the CNNR can extract features from samples better than the traditional machine learning models.

The parameters used during milling of malt have considerable implications for the turbidity of wort collected during lautering, and wort turbidity has previously been demonstrated to impact ester development by yeast (during fermentation of brewer’s wort). The present research assesses the impact of milling regime and wort turbidity on congener development during production of malt whisky new make spirit. New make spirit was produced from pot still malt prepared with a disc mill under differing milling regimes (mill gap: 0.5–1.5 mm; laboratory scale). Use of increasingly coarse milling conditions positively correlated with wort turbidity and reduced concentration of acetate and ethyl esters in new-make spirit. Similar to previous research within the brewing industry, turbid wort was generally associated with reduced ester content, particularly in samples produced under the coarsest milling conditions (mill gap: 1.5 mm). Turbidity of new-make spirit (diluted to 30% ABV) was reduced in samples produced from wort of elevated turbidity, likely due to reduced content of ethyl esters and other haze-active congeners.