Today’s beer differs in many ways from the original hazy brew made from grains and water left in the sun to ferment. The development of brewing procedures introduced filtration and colloidal stabilization as key elements in beer preservation and stability. Colloidal stability of beer is the most important factor in beer quality. Colloidal particles significantly shorten beer’s storage time, but most importantly, also influence its appearance. Colloidal stabilization involves one or more procedures that are applied at different stages during production and result in colloidal stability of the final product. Beer is considered to be colloidal stable if it can be stored for several months at 25 °C without exhibiting any changes in composition or other properties; specifically, beer has to be able to remain clear without any signs of precipitation. Since colloidal stability is of primary importance for the consumer, retail requirements have resulted in many solutions for this issue. Stabilization agents have to be reliable during the filtration and stabilization processes. Additionally, renewable agents are highly desirable. The level of colloidal stability required depends on the desired storage time and temperature after the beer has been packed. Consumers have higher and higher expectations that the industry has to follow.
Beers are differentiated mainly according to their visual appearance and their fermentation process. The main quality characteristics of beer are appearance, aroma, flavor, and mouthfeel. Important visual attributes of beer are foam appearance (volume and persistence), as well as the color and clarity. To replace manual inspection, automatic, objective, rapid and repeatable external quality inspection systems, such as computer vision, are becoming very important and necessary. Computer vision is a non-contact optical technique, suitable for the non-destructive evaluation of the food product quality. Currently, the main application of computer vision occurs in automated inspection and measurement, allowing manufacturers to keep control of product quality. This paper presents an overview of the applications and the latest achievements of the computer vision methods in determining the external quality attributes of beer.
The sudden craft breweries expansion currently occurring in Europe, and by that also in Croatia, has been a true conundrum. The question is why craft breweries currently undergo such intense propagation. The answers to this is not simple and has to be monitored from a few different angles: what are today’s consumer’s preferences? Why this sudden need to drink posh beer? Health wise – is it healthier to drink craft beer than industrial? The fact is that craft breweries offer beer with a story. The popularity of health benefits of moderate beer consumption, different reports in popular papers and magazines on polyphenolic and other anti-oxidative compounds that aid catching free radicals and reduce the damage they cause, contribute to the shift from industrial plane lager beer craft beer. In the eye of the scientific storm-genetic manipulation with yeast strains, and barley cultivars, water treatments, automatization, people choose simple procedures and raw materials that give them a feeling of uniqueness. This paper contributes to the knowledge of why craft breweries are taking on more and more popularity and why are consumers attracted to such products.
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