Alcoholic Beverages: Our Solutions

In Europe, alcoholic beverages including beer, wine, and spirits are prominent, with flavor being a key quality factor. However, this industry faces various challenges beyond flavor, and Mérieux NutriSciences is prepared to offer holistic solutions. Certain stages like fermentation and maturation greatly impact beverage quality and flavor. Effective monitoring is crucial to avoid spoilage and subpar processes.

Our Services Dedicated to the Alcoholic Beverage Industry Challenges

In Europe’s diverse alcoholic beverage industry, Mérieux NutriSciences offers targeted services. From meticulous lab testing to sensory analysis, we address microbial counts, spoilage, fermentation, and more. Our expertise spans stability, safety, compliance, and sustainability, ensuring product excellence and industry advancement.

Our services dedicated to beer

Laboratory Services

We conduct thorough testing of key indicators to ensure the safety of products, adherence to regulatory standards, and the maintenance of high product quality.

Contact our team for a customized analytical plan, according to your product’s specificities, geographies, and your specific challenges.

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Silliker Food Science Center

Addressing key challenges of your products lifecycle with our expert team:

Silliker Food Science Center

Alcoholic beverages are sensitive products: small issues can have strong impacts on product sensorial characteristics and the root cause can be difficult to identify. Our experts team help you investigate any challenges linked with product’s stability over time, processes verification, spoilage issues investigation and can perform many customized studies on your products.

Sensorial analysis & Consumers studies

Understanding product sensorial spectrum & consumers preferences:

Sensory & Consumer Research

Alcoholic beverages are very specific matrices to study in terms of sensoriality and consumers’ preferences. Among our sensory teams, we have experts dedicated to such sensitive matrices, to help identify the whole spectrum of sensorial characteristics of your products.  

Mérieux NutriSciences also conducts consumer studies. We adapt our panels of consumers to your geographies thanks to our worldwide coverage, to analyze their preferences, usage, emotional responses and even neurological responses!

Mérieux NutriSciences provides comprehensive support to the Alcoholic Beverages Industry at every stage of the supply chain

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Our accreditations

Learn More about Safety, Quality, and Sensory Challenges for Alcoholic Beverages

Key Regulations on Alcoholic Beverages

For a complete list of all regulations, contact our Regulatory Experts:

Contact our Experts
More info in our BLUE PAPER

Our services are customized to the requirements of each matrix and ensure compliance with relevant regulations:

Microbiology Food Testing

  • Total aerobic microbial count;
  • Yeasts and molds, including yeasts & bacteria that are used for brewing & wine processes;
  • Spoilage microorganisms (Hop-resistant Pediococcus and Lactobacillus, lactic acid – producing microbes, Brettanomyces/Dekkera species, Brettanomyces Bruxellensis; Megasphaera and Pectinatus, Saccharomyces diastaticus…).
Our Microbiological Testing Solutions

Chemistry Food Testing

  • Composition

Density, nutritional analysis, alcohol content, total dry extract, volatile substances, acidity, volatile acidity, anethole, glycyrrhizic acid, total sugars, egg yolk, chalcones, wood compounds (furfural, 5-hydroxymethylfurfural, 5- methylfurfural, vanillin, syringaldehyde, coniferaldehyde, sinapaldehyde, gallic acid, ellagic acid, vanillic acid, syringic acid and scopoletin).

Specific parameters for beer: ashes, acidity, alcoholic degree, real extract, primitive extract, apparent extract, density, degree of fermentation, SO2, colour, bitterness, sugars, Ca, Cu, P, Fe, Mg, K, Na, Zn, Al, As, Cd, Co, Cr, Sn, pH, nutritional, glycerine, fibre, lactose…

Specific parameters for wine: density, Al and other minerals, pH, volumetric mass, energy value, carbohydrates, SO2, dry residue, benzoic, ash, salt, sugars…

  • Contaminants

Mycotoxins: aflatoxins (Sum of B1, B2, G1, G2), ochratoxin A, heavy metals, cyanide, methanol, volatile congeners (aldehydes, higher alcohols, ethyl acetate, methanol), volatile phenols, dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs.

  • Residues

Pesticides / insecticides / herbicides / fungicides

  • Hygiene issues

Temperature, storage, organoleptic aspect, etc.

  • Allergens

(PCR, Elisa, LC-MS/MS) as sulphites, gluten (Competitive ELISA).

Reasearch

Physical Testing: Foreign particles, product defects, pests.

Silliker Food Science Center

Biomolecular Testing

  • Spoilage microorganisms

(Hop- resistant Pediococcus and Lactobacillus, lactic acid – producing microbes, Brettanomyces/Dekkera species, Brettanomyces Bruxellensis, Megasphaera and Pectinatus, Saccharomyces diastaticus…).

  • Allergen analysis