The impact of new technologies on beer quality and sustainability

Abstract

The brewing industry is facing several major changes in the recent period. The fast growth of the craft beer market and the addition of more and more new breweries have put pressure on breweries of all sizes. However, the higher-quality beer and sustainability of the production remain the ultimate goals of each beer producer. The new technologies that are developed and introduced in beer fermentation are trying to answer these requests even in the case of multiple shortening of beer production time. Beer fermentation is the most time-consuming stage in beer production. Therefore, in the competitive market like beer market is, the optimization of fermentation time without changing beer quality and sensory profile is a challenge for all the brewers. Immobilization of yeast cells is one of the approaches for fermentation time reduction as well as continuous process operation without the risk of yest cells washout from the fermenter. Immobilized yeast cells were successfully implemented in industrial scale in continuous beer maturation and the production of beer with low alcohol content. However, primary beer fermentation with immobilized yeast cells is still facing number of challenges in spite of the fact that different approaches were made. The major reason for this fact is linked to the changed conditions for immobilized yeast growth that cause changes in yeast morphology and physiology, and consequently altered aroma and flavor of beer produced. Some of the applied solutions gave good results on the laboratory and pilot scale experiments and have the potential to be spread on industrial scale. The aim of this study is to make a review of the existing knowledge of the methods for yeast immobilization, the carriers used in brewing, fermented design and to summarize their impacts on beer quality and sustainability of production.