While beer has long been stabilized by thermal pasteurization, recent concerns have been raised regarding the survival of spoilers and pathogenic bacteria in low- or non-alcohol and low-hopped beers. This seminar discusses the basics of how brewing microbes die when heated and provide the latest information on the effect of pasteurization on beers, including those with reduced alcohol and hop levels.
Learning Objectives
- Gain an awareness of the basic concepts of thermal bacteriology
- Understand the dangers of pathogenic growth in low- and non-alcohol beer
- Learn to calculate the number of pasteurization units (PUs) from a pasteurization process and how to estimate the number of PUs required to reduce a specific organism to a set level in your beer
About the Speaker
Alex Speers, Consultant & Retired Professor
Kootenay Consulting & Herriot-Watt Univesity
Dr. R. Alex Speers is an honorary professor of brewing and distilling and a former professor and director of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, as well as an emeritus professor at the Canadian Institute for Fermentation Technology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Born and raised two blocks from a brewery in Creston, British Columbia, Alex now resides in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Alex was previously employed in the quality assurance departments of both Labatt and Molson Breweries. His research interests include various aspects of the brewing process and he has organized, presented, and judged at brewing events worldwide. Alex has spent sabbaticals at Carlton & United Breweries (CUB)/Foster's and the Columbia Brewing Company. He is a past chair of the editorial board for the Master Brewers Association of the Americas (MBAA) journal, The Technical Quarterly. Alex belongs to several professional brewing societies and editorial boards, including those for the Journal of the American Society of Brewing Chemists (ASBC), the Journal of the Institute of Brewing, and Fermentation. He has published or presented more than 300 papers and is a fellow of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling. He was awarded both the ASBC Eric Kneen Award and the MBAA Award of Merit in 2017.
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