Hiroyuki Yoshimoto (1), Takeo Imai (1), Tomonori Konno (2), Toshiyuki Okubo (2), Yumiko Suzuki (2), Ryoji Takata (2), Takayuki Tamura (2), Kiyoshi Taniguchi (2); (1) Research Laboratories for Alcoholic Beverage Technologies, Kirin Company, Limited, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan; (2) Research Laboratories for Wine Technologies, Kirin Company, Limited, Japan

Sensory
Poster

The pairing of alcoholic beverages with food is very important to fully enjoy alcoholic beverages. In the case of wine, it is referred to as a “marriage.” However, an unpleasant fishy aftertaste is sometimes perceived from wine when it is paired with seafood, although drinking wine and eating seafood are both individually pleasant. This aftertaste is one of the reasons that people tend to avoid drinking wine and eating seafood at same time, and it remains an open problem. To help resolve this issue, we have previously attempted to identify the component of wine that clashes with seafood and understand the mechanism that gives rise to the fishy aftertaste (1). The results showed that the ferrous ion contained in wine can instantaneously promote the formation of (E,Z)-2,4-heptadienal, which is one of the components of unpleasant fishy aftertaste, via the breakdown of preformed lipid hydroperoxides derived from unsaturated fatty acids in seafood. The fishy aftertaste is also sometimes perceived when beer is paired with seafood. To demonstrate that the mechanisms involved are the same for wine and beer, we have investigated the relationship between the ferrous ion concentration in beer and the fishy aftertaste using the following method. The ferrous ions in beer were removed through treatment with a metal chelating resin. Then, beer samples with various concentrations of ferrous ions were prepared by mixing the treated beer with untreated beer. The intensity of the fishy aftertaste during beer and seafood pairings was then rated using sensory analysis. The intensity was found to decrease with decreasing ferrous ion concentration in the beer. These results indicate there is a relationship between the ferrous ion concentration in beer, the (E,Z)-2,4-heptadienal concentration, and the intensity of the unpleasant fishy aftertaste. Therefore, the results demonstrated that ferrous ions in beer are one of the factors that increased a fishy aftertaste during wine/beer and seafood pairings, and that a common mechanism for fishy aftertaste formation exists for wine and beer. (1) Tamura et al. J. Agric. Food Chem. 57:8550-8556, 2009.

Hiroyuki Yoshimoto received his Ph.D. degree in engineering from Hiroshima University, Japan, in March 1992. In April 1992, he began his employment at the Kirin Brewery Company, Ltd. as a yeast researcher in the Central Laboratories for Key Technology. He also studied yeast technology at Stanford University, CA, from 1999 to 2001. In March 2007, he began working in the Research Laboratories for Brewing at the Kirin Brewery Company, Ltd. After being transferred to the Brewing Section at the Nagoya plant and working there for two years, in April 2014, he started working in the Research Laboratories for Alcoholic Beverage Technologies at Kirin Company, Ltd.