Analysis of Flavor and Off-Flavor Compounds in Beer Using PerkinElmer HS-GC System

Brewing industry requires a robust and precise method to identify and quantify key flavor and off-flavor compounds in beer, ensuring consistent sensory quality, optimizing brewing processes, supporting product development, and QA/QC for meeting the standards and authenticity of the marketed beer. This application note presents a reliable approach for determining flavour compounds (ethyl acetate, ethyl propionate, propyl acetate, ethyl butyrate, ethyl hexanoate and ethyl octanoate, fusel alcohols like isoamyl alcohol, isobutanol, 2-butanol and 3-pentanol) and off-flavour compounds (1-propanol, 1-butanol, 1-pentanol, n-octanol and isobutyraldehyde) in complex matrices commonly found in commercial beer using the PerkinElmer HS-GC with FID system. The system’s performance, with area %RSD ranging from 0.2 to 1.6 and recoveries between 92 and 110% for the 15 volatile compounds tested, meets the criteria set by the DG-SANTE guidelines (SANTE/11312/2021), which specify a recovery (accuracy) of 70 to 120% and precision (%RSD) of ≤ 20%. The method is suitable for the analysis of real beer samples and provides a robust platform to support routine QA/QC as well as research and development in the brewing industry.