Anaerobic beer spoiler

Beer spoilage bacteria pose a serious threat to the brewing industry due to their capability to adapt to an environment as hostile as beer. The improvement of processes as well as technologies in breweries over the past years led to lower oxygen levels in the finished product, which gave rise to anaerobic beer spoilage bacteria. Their resilience towards hop-derived compounds (e.g. iso-alpha-acids), low pH, and ethanol content in combination with the ability to utilize the scarce amount of residual nutrients provided in beer enables them to grow strictly anaerobic in the finished product. We aim to further understand the underlying spoilage mechanisms of strict anaerobes from the genera Pectinatus spp. and Megasphaera spp. by characterizing general and/or strain-specific spoilage traits in different environments. Based on this we intend to identify marker genes for early detection of contaminants and elucidation of contamination routes.