Innovations in the brewing industry: light beer

The demand for light beers has led brewers to innovate by developing light beer. However, these products are not widely accepted in Europe compared to North America and Australasia because of their lack of fullness in the taste and low bitterness compared with conventional beer. The lower levels of some important compounds, present in light beer, can explain these features since they are responsible for the characteristics of the beer. These include alcohol soluble proteins, oligosaccharides, glycerol, polyphenols, iso-alpha-acids, fusel alcohols and trihydroxy fatty acids. Light beer is produced by several methods, the most commonly used is the addition of glucoamylase to the wort before or during fermentation. This enzyme metabolizes residual carbohydrates (mainly dextrins) transforming them into fermentable sugars and reducing the caloric and alcohol content in this type of beer. Recently pilot studies have been carried out with genetically engineered yeast strains in which amylolytic genes are introduced into the yeast genome in order to metabolize carbohydrate residues. When introducing amylolytic genes, a better fermentability occurs although the fullness of flavor still becomes reduced.