Regarding the foam on your pint, Belgian beers are “with head” of the game. A team of European researchers looking for what is happening in the manufacture of perfect beer foam found Belgian beers with triple clandestinely, having the most stable foam of the six drinks studied, while blonde beer fermented with foam was the least.
The goal of the study, published in the journal Liquid physicsIt was to better understand the formation of foam – and beer turned out to be an excellent case study.
“The idea was to study directly what is happening in the thin film that separates two neighboring bubbles,” said Emmanouil Chatzigiannakis, assistant professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology University in the Netherlands, in a statement of support. “And the first thing that comes to mind when you think of bubbles and foams is beer.”
Belgian beer has the most stable foam
Beer is a large company. As one of the most popular alcoholic beverages worldwide, it contributed $ 555 billion to the world economy in 2024, according to figures cited in the newspaper.
A key feature of beer is the foam at the top of a pint. This includes tiny air bubbles covered with a thin liquid film. When the film remains stable, the bubbles keep their shape and the foam holds. On the other hand, the less the film is stable, the more pop bubbles, the foam dissolves and the head disappears.
To determine what exactly caused the foam to keep stability, the team studied six types of beer, including two Belgian tripels (Westmalle Tripel and Tripel Karmeliet), a Dubbel, a Singel and two blond beers. The team found that triple clandestine beers presented the most stable foam. The finalists were fermented beers twice, while simple fermented blond beers arrived in the last place.
Learn more: Could the hop beer help prevent the appearance of Alzheimer’s disease?
What increases (or decreases) the stability of foam?
Surface viscosity is the main factor affecting the stability of fermented blond beers, which in turn are affected by the presence of proteins.
In short, the higher the number of proteins, the more stable the beer. But when a beer undergoes additional fermentation processes, the nature of the LPT1 protein (lipid transfer protein 1) changes, which, in turn, increases the stability of the foam.
The researchers found that the moss of fermented triple beers, such as the Trappist beers brewed in European monasteries, retains its stability thanks to the forces that occur due to differences in surface tension and maintain the structure of the bubbles. This boost to its stability means that the head on a clandestinely triple beer will survive that of a blond beer.
What is the next step for beer research?
The researchers hope that the results will allow manufacturers to improve their beer, but the results could have many other advantages in a diverse range of industries that are based on foam – from varicose vein to improve the safety of electric vehicles.
“It is an inspiration for other types of material design, where we can start thinking about the most economical means in terms of [of creating stable foams]”Said the principal author, professor of flexible materials in Eth Zurich, Switzerland, in a press release. Addition: “If we cannot use conventional surfactants, can we imitate 2D networks that the double clandestinely beers have? »»
Learn more: The scientist calculates a form of beer glass perfect to keep the liquid fresh
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