Alcohol-Free Beer

Elisabeth Koussissi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Wine, Vine and Beverage Sciences, of the University of West Attica in Athens, Greece. She holds a PhD in Sensory Science from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK, where she studied a broad set of red wines from Greece on their sensory as well as their compositional aspects. She afterwards worked in the Technological Educational Institute of Athens, Department of Oenology & Beverage Technology, as Post Doc for a programme on the “Development of a technology for the accelerated aging of wines and spirits”, and in Strathclyde University, as a research fellow, contributing to several research projects and carrying out teaching for the International MSc courses of “Food Biotechnology” and “Food Science and Microbiology”. From 2007 - 2018, she worked in the Research & Development department of Heineken B.V. in the Netherlands, first as Sensory and later as Flavor Scientist. In that period, Elisabeth participated and led multiple research and development projects, always in close cooperation with production and the Heineken Operating Companies, but also with academia and research institutes. During that period, she worked extensively in the Low and No- alcohol categories, and took part in the product development of several products belonging on that portfolio. Her research interests remain in the sensory and flavour science of foods and drinks, with particular interest in linking the production process to the flavour of the products.

José Piornos, PhD, is a researcher in flavour chemistry. PhD in Food & Nutritional Sciences from the University of Reading (UK) in 2020 about the identification, sensory characteristics and formation kinetics of aroma compounds contributing to the worty attributes in alcohol-free beers, in partnership with The Heineken Company. He worked as a postdoctoral research assistant at Reading for a project about the interactions between soy protein matrices and sulphur meaty aroma compounds. In January 2022 he joined INRAE, the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, and more precisely the CSGA (Centre for Taste and Feeding Behaviour) in Dijon. Since then, his research interest has focused on the role of food matrix composition on the release of flavour compounds and the consequent effect on perception. He currently leads a research project in which the aim is to understand the role of ethanol in the release of aroma compounds in alcoholic drinks, and how its absence impacts the perception of alcohol-free drinks.