CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF OVERFOAMING BEER

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Abstract
Overfoaming is a highly undesirable defect which may make its appearance in bottled beer which has been subjected to the vicissitudes of transportation from brewery to consumer. It is most probable that vibration during transport, acting in conjunction with certain abnormal constituents of the beer (presumably derived from the barley), causes the formation of innumerable minute nuclei which in turn occasion the violent evolution of carbon dioxide as soon as the bottle is opened. The application of controlled shaking is widely used as a laboratory method of evoking overfoaming and so of assessing the liability of a beer to this defect. It has been discovered that the presence of cobalt (in the form of simple cobaltous salts) at a concentration of 0–2-10 parts per million parts of beer entirely, or almost entirely, abolishes its liability to overfoam. Whilst this concentration of cobalt also improves foam stability and foam adhesion, it is without effect on the taste and stability of the beer and is unobjectionable from the point of view of public health. The hypothesis is proposed that cobalt, by complexing with certain nitrogenous constituents of the beer, produces surface-active substances which Inactivate the nuclei responsible for overfoaming.