Scientists regularly uncork fresh insights into beer and wine — even though they were invented thousands of years ago.
Two recent discoveries published in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry go beyond buzz and bouquet, diving into the haziness and potential health impacts of wine.
Yeast extracts add haze to lager beer.
Hazy beer styles are becoming more popular, and their namesake characteristic usually comes from tiny particles made of barley proteins and hop polyphenols. Alternatively, to produce haziness, researchers have added yeast extracts to two brands of clear lager.
The additions made both beverages extremely cloudy because of interactions between ribonucleic acids (RNA) in the extract and proteins in the beer. The researchers say that yeast RNA extracts could be another way to create desirable haziness levels.
Wine sulfites change the gut microbiome
Sulfites help wine last longer but can cause headaches or digestive issues for some people. So, researchers studied in lab tests how sulfites added to wine and an ethanol-containing liquid affect gut bacteria.
They passed the samples through a three-stage process meant to mimic human digestion. After digestion, samples with sulfites contained lower amounts of some beneficial bacteria and greater amounts of bacteria related to negative health effects than before digestion.
However, the changes were less in the real wine samples, which the researchers say suggests compounds, such as polyphenols, in wine offered slight protection.
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