SABMiller plc, one of the world’s leading brewers, is pleased to announce the appointment of Ronald van Amerongen to the group marketing team as the International Brand Director for Grolsch, according to company’s press release, March 19. It follows SABMiller acquisition of Royal Grolsch which was finalised on 21st February 2008.

Reporting to Nick Fell, SABMiller’s Group Marketing Director, Ronald was previously Grolsch Director for Global Marketing, where he was already responsible for the growth of the Grolsch brand in its domestic and international markets.

Commenting on his appointment, Nick Fell said:

“I am very pleased to welcome Ronald and of course, Grolsch, to SABMiller. Grolsch will provide SABMiller with a powerful addition to its international portfolio, and Ronald brings with him experience and understanding of the Grolsch brand. Within the SABMiller family Grolsch will continue to build on almost 400 years of brewing heritage and together we will establish new positions in the most important emerging beer markets around the world. I look forward to working with Ronald to write the next chapter in this great brand’s history.”

Previously, Ronald worked for Friesland foods as Marketing Director for the juices and still drinks business and as International Marketing Manager for the enhanced ...More Info

D.E. Evans(1), M. Ratcliffe(2), B.L. Jones(3), A.R. Barr(1). (1) The University of Adelaide, Waite Campus, Dept. of Plant Science, Glen Osmond, SA 5064 (2) Victorian Institute for Dryland Agriculture, PO Box 260, Horsham, VIC 3401, (3) USD-ARS, Cereal Crops Unit, 501N Walnut St, Madison, WI 53705, USA.

Introduction
Beer foam quality is one of the critical characteristics that a consumer will use to determinethe quality of dispensed beer. Brewers are particularly interested in optimising foam quality because it will impact upon customers purchase decisions. Beer foam quality is a combination of its stability, quantity, lacing (adhesion or cling), whiteness, 'creaminess', density, viscosity and strength (Bamforth, 1985). Brewers current strategies for improving foam stability are to specify malt with relatively low Kolbach indices (KI, soluble/total protein) and supplement the beer produced with PGA (propylene glycol alginate), use foam generating "widgets" or use chemically hydrogenated hop extracts (i.e. “Tetra” hop). All these strategies are relatively costly and will impart visual or flavour effects on the beer that may not be desirable. Naturally occurring foam promotants in beer include proteins (>5kDa), isohumulone, metal cations, low levels of ethanol (<3%) and gums (presumably ß-glucans and arabinoxylans) while lipids and high levels of ethanol are foam inhibiting (Bamforth, 1985). Foam-positive proteins can be divided into two fractions based on molecular weight, 1. high molecular weight (HMW, 35-50 kDa); 2. low molecular weight (LMW, 5-17 kDa). Both fractions originate primarily from malt (Asano & Hashimoto, 1980), with the HMW fraction containing mainly protein Z (Kaersgaard, P. & Hejgaard, 1979), and the LMW fraction containing LTP1 (lipid transfer protein 1) and a mixture of hordein and glutelin fragments (Sorensen et al., 1993, Sheehan & Skerritt, 1997, Vaag et al., 1999). Protein Z may be further sub-divided into the protein Z4 and protein Z7 forms which are highly related and expressed from one or more genes on chromosomes 4H and 5H, respectively. In barley and malt, protein Z4 is the dominant isoform accounting for approximately 80 % of all protein Z. Evans et al., (1998, 1999) applied quantitative enzymelinked immunosorbent as says (ELISA) to measure the quantity of protein Z4, protein Z7 and LTP1 in malt. In small and pilot scale brewing trials, the level of protein Z4 was significantly and positively correlated to foam stability as measured by the Rudin head retention time test (Bishop et al., 1975). It follows that if foam quality could be predicted by measurement of foam-positive proteins in barley and malt it would be possible to deliver malt to both domestic and international brewers that produce beer with high quality foam heads. In this study, the quantity of protein Z4, protein Z7 and LTP1 were assessed in malt from a selection of Australian and international malting varieties. The genetic basis for the level of protein Z4 and Z7 were established by QTL analysis in two mapping populations.
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