Differentiation of aromatic, bittering and dual-purpose commercial hops from their terpenic profiles: An approach involving batch extraction, GC-MS and multivariate analysis

Abstract

Terpenes are one of the main classes of compounds in hops (Humulus lupulus, L). They play an important role in brewing due to their central function, which is related to beer aroma. A screening of terpenes in several commercial hop varieties was carried out by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry after employing a simple, straightforward and high throughput extraction method. A single batch extraction, using hexane as solvent, was employed to obtain the terpenic fraction of the hop samples. Nineteen terpenes were identified in analyzed samples with β-myrcene (2.22-45.30%), α-humulene (20.20-67.64%), and β-caryophyllene (9.97-24.62%) being the major terpenes in all samples. The studied system was multivariate modeled by principal component analysis. Based on the proposed approach, it was possible to correlate the terpenic hop profiles to their specific purpose in the brewing industry and to distinguish aromatic hops (high α-humulene content), bittering hops (high β-myrcene content), and dual-purpose hops (more complex and intermediate terpenic profile) among the samples.

Keywords: Aroma; Beer; Hops; Humulus lupulus; Principal component analysis; Terpenes.