DEVELOPMENT, SENSORY ANALYSIS AND ACCEPTABILITY INDEX OF A CRAFT BEER WITH LOW ALCOHOLIC CONTENT AND INULIN ADDED
The search for healthy products is a trend in consumer behavior. Studies show that consumers are more demanding and concerned about health, searching for foods and beverages with higher nutritional quality. Among them are those foods considered prebiotics, such as inulin. The objective of the present work was to develop and sensory analyze a low alcohol content beer with inulin. Commercial inulin was added in 3 different stages of beer production by All-grain method: fermentation, maturation and bottling. The product was evaluated as a yellow amber turbid beer, with medium carbonation and persistent collar, with typical aroma of hops supported by the residual sweetness. The treatment that had inulin introduced in the filling stage was the one that achieved the proposed alcoholic content, that was up to 2%, and then chosen to perform the sensory analysis. The beer was evaluated by sensory analysis to the attributes color, aroma and flavor, using hedonic scale of 9 points, with 70 untrained panelists. With the results, we determined the acceptability indexes for each attribute. An amount of 65% of the tasters has the habit of consuming beer and 70% have never tasted craft beer. For color parameter an average of 6,22 was obtained, aroma was average note was 7,09 and flavor 6,18. The beer was well accepted by the judges, although most have never tasted any kind of craft beer. The acceptability index had values close to 70%, indicating good acceptance. The aroma attribute had 77% of acceptability, while color and taste had 66%. It was concluded that the development of a beer with low alcohol plus inulin may be an option to the consumer of beer that prioritizes health and wellness when purchasing their products.