The Register‘s Simon Sharwood on an Australian development that might herald new long-life beers:
Researchers at Australia’s University of Adelaide have unlocked the secret to letting beer age without it tasting like old socks.
Doctor Jason Eglington of the university’s School of Agriculture, Food and Wine explained that barley contains an enzyme called “lipoxygenase”. The enzymatic process produces several substances, among them an aroma volatile, catchily named “trans-2-nonenal”. The latter substance, over time, gives old beer a nasty taste and odour.
Eglington, who heads the university’s Barley Program*, learned that some ancient strains of barley have a defective version of lipoxygenase.
Some selective breeding later and the booze boffins have produced a new barley with everything a brewer could want — except working lipoxygenase.
