Authentication of Trappist beers by LC-MS fingerprints and multivariate data analysis

The aim of this study was to asses the applicability of LC-MS profiling to authenticate a selected Trappist beer as part of a program on traceability funded by the European Commission. A total of 232 beers were fingerprinted and classified through multivariate data analysis. The selected beer was clearly distinguished from beers of different brands, while only 3 samples (3.5% of the test set) were wrongly classified when compared with other types of beer of the same Trappist brewery. The fingerprints were further analyzed to extract the most discriminating variables, which proved to be sufficient for classification, even using a simplified unsupervised model. This reduced fingerprint allowed us to study the influence of batch-to-batch variability on the classification model. Our results can easily be applied to different matrices and they confirmed the effectiveness of LC-MS profiling in combination with multivariate data analysis for the characterization of food products.