Analysis of beer components by capillary electrophoretic methods

Beer has been a popular beverage for thousands of years, and brewers often describe brewing as the oldest biotechnological process. Beer constituents comprise more than 800 compounds and many of them contribute to its flavor characteristics, such as bitterness, sweetness, acidity, hop character, carbonation, alcoholic and fruity or ester flavor, most of which are determined by capillary electrophoresis (CE). CE has recently emerged as a highly promising technique that consumes an extremely small amount of sample and is capable of rapid, high-resolution separation, characterization, and quantitation of analytes. An overview is presented of CE methods currently in use to determine different compounds in beer samples. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.