Use of Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. boulardii in co-fermentations with S. cerevisiae for the production of craft beers with potential healthy value-added.

In recent years, the awareness of consumers about the impact of food on health is constantly increasing. A high amount of dietary antioxidant intake can be supplied by beverages widely consumed, such as wine, coffee, beer. Recently, an increase in the consumer interest was observed for beer, in consequence of the high phenolic antioxidants and low ethanol content present in this beverage. Among all beer types, in recent years, consumption of craft beers has gained popularity. Being an unpasteurized and unfiltered, craft beer is potentially a new vehicle for delivering health effects. While health benefits of lactic acid bacteria as probiotics are well known, few data are available on probiotic yeasts in fermented food. Therefore, this study was aimed to analyse the effect of integrating the well-known probiotic yeast strain of S. cerevisiae var. boulardii (S.b) in mixed cultures with S. cerevisiae strains for production of beers with increased healthy benefits. The probiotic strain of S.b was tested in mixed cultures with selected S. cerevisiae strains, during wort fermentation. As the viability during processing operations is one of the criteria for selecting suitable strains of probiotic microorganisms, the survival of probiotic yeast during the fermentation and the presence of highly viable cells at the end of fermentations were evaluated. In almost all the mixed fermentations, at the end of the process the probiotic yeast was predominant on S. cerevisiae strain, and the experimental beers contained a high number of viable cells of S.b strain (ranging between 8 × 106 and 7.0 × 107/mL). The analysis of experimental beers for the content of main volatile compounds showed that the inclusion of S.b strain in mixed starter did not affect negatively beer aroma. Moreover, the inclusion of S.b strain in mixed starters determined an increase in the antioxidant activity and polyphenols content, in comparison to beers from single starter fermentations, indicating the influence of S.b strain on these parameters. Some mixed starter cultures tested in this study resulted a very promising tool to increase the healthy quality of the product, such as the improve the antioxidant activity and polyphenols content of beer.