Maturing lambic beers reveal that the wheat and barley varieties have no impact on their composition and flavor
Whereas most beer brewers nowadays have the freedom to vary the ingredients to create a broad variety of beers, lambic beer brewers are more restricted toward the ingredients they can use to produce their beers. The only way to alter the ingredients for the production of lambic beer is by using different cereal varieties. To determine the impact of the use of different wheat and barley varieties on the lambic beer production process, 28 maturing lambic beers, originating from 14 lambic beer production processes, were sampled after 24 months of maturation. These lambic beers were characterized on a microbiological and biochemical level. For the microbiological characterization, a culture-independent identification technique, based on high-throughput amplicon sequencing, was used. The biochemical composition of the lambic beers were characterized by combining several chromatographical techniques in combination with the most suitable detection methods. The results revealed that the wheat and barley varieties did not greatly influence the microbial and flavor compositions of the lambic beers. However, differences between lambic beers probably originated from the spontaneous origin of these beers. Also the brewing season seemed to influence the outcome of the lambic beer production process since lambic beers brewed in the winter showed a slower start compared to the ones brewed in spring.