Beer volatile compounds and their application to low-malt beer fermentation

Low-malt beers, in which the amount of wort is adjusted to less than two-thirds of that in regular beer, are popular in the Japanese market because the flavor of low-malt beer is similar to that of regular beer but the price lesser than that of regular beer. There are few published articles about low-malt beer. However, in the production process, there are many similarities between low-malt and regular beer, e.g., the yeast used in low-malt beer fermentation is the same as that used for regular beer. Furthermore, many investigations into regular beer are applicable to low-malt beer production. In this review, we focus on production of volatile compounds, and various studies that are applicable to regular and low-malt beer. In particular, information about metabolism of volatile compounds in yeast cells during fermentation, volatile compound measurement and estimation methods, and control of volatile compound production are discussed in this review, which concentrates on studies published in the last 5-6 years.