Belgian researchers present new beer bible

Belgian Beer: Tested and Tasted is not like other beer books. It's the result of 5 years of hard scientific work. The authors, Professor Kevin Verstrepen and researcher Miguel Roncoroni, analysed as many as 250 beers in their lab at the Leuven Institute for Beer Research and the VIB Centre for Microbiology.  "As scientists, we were frustrated with the fact that we had so little objective data to rely on," Professor Verstrepen explains his motivation. "Existing beer books offer the opinion of an expert who has tasted the beers, describes and rates them, but this approach is not always accurate and it also doesn't tell you a lot. Hence the idea to map our amazing Belgian beers in an objective way." The aroma of beers is determined by hundreds of volatile substances. The Leuven-based lab is able to identify these substances using its state-of-the-art equipment for gas chromatography. "We take a sample of the volatile components that float above the beer," Verstrepen explains.