The occurrence and structural heterogeneity of arabinoxylan in commercial pilsner beers and their non-alcoholic counterparts.

The impact of arabinoxylan (AX) on the brewing process and beer characteristics depends on its content and structure and is often overlooked in research and industry. This paper reports on the occurrence and structural heterogeneity of AX in a set of commercial pilsner beers and their non-alcoholic counterparts. Fractionation by graded ethanol precipitation allowed us to isolate AX-rich fractions from beer with a number-average degree of polymerisation of 4 to 308 and an average degree of substitution in the range of 0.43 to 0.88. Pilsner beers had a higher content of high-molecular-weight AX than their non-alcoholic counterparts. The structural heterogeneity among the various commercial beers differed. By comparing the chemical composition of the beers, differences in beer production methods and ingredient selection were deduced and used to tentatively explain the differences in AX content and structural heterogeneity.

Triticum aestivum L. endoxylanase inhibitor (TAXI) consists of two inhibitors, TAXI I and TAXI II, with different specificities.

The Triticum aestivum L. endoxylanase inhibitor (TAXI) discovered by Debyser and Delcour [(1997) Eur. Pat. filed April 1997, published as WO 98/49278] and Debyser, Derdelinckx and Delcour [(1997) J. Am. Soc. Brew. Chem. 55, 153-156] seems to be a mixture of two different endoxylanase inhibitors, called TAXI I and TAXI II. By using Aspergillus niger as well as Bacillus subtilis endoxylanases for assaying inhibition activity, both inhibitors could be purified to homogeneity from wheat (Triticum aestivum L., var. Soissons). TAXI I and TAXI II have similar molecular structures. They both have a molecular mass of approx. 40.0 kDa, are not glycosylated and occur in two molecular forms, i.e. a non-proteolytically processed one and a proteolytically processed one. However, the pI of TAXI II (at least 9.3) is higher than that of TAXI I (8.8). TAXI I and TAXI II clearly show different inhibition activities towards different endoxylanases. The N-terminal amino acid sequences of both inhibitors show a high degree of identity, which might indicate that there is an evolutionary relationship between them.