Methods for characterization of hop varieties include analyses of bitter acids and essential oils, followed by comparison of the chemical composition, particularly chromatographic profiles. In the present work discrimination of different hop varieties was carried out based on their essential oil volatile composition, assessed by headspace gas chromatography, with subsequent statistical treatment of the data. Differences and similarities were determined in samples from USA, New Zealand and Europe, using correlation and cluster analysis. Aroma hops presented low levels of myrcene while bitter samples showed high levels of beta-caryophyllene, aloaromadendrene and also the sum of the marker ratios, independently of being in the form of pellets or extracts. Highly correlated samples with no significant differences have good possibility to substitute each other in the beer manufacture.
hop aroma; hop products; beer; headspace-GC analysis
