Once upon a time, simply raising a glass was enough. Today, to understand what's in your glass of wine or beer, you need a diagnostic kit, a microscope, and a little courage. Not that the wine was purer or the beer more honest—but we didn't know enough to ask questions. Now we do. And the answers change the way we drink.
Wine and beer: lifelong friends, surprising from now on
Cloudy beer isn't always art. Sometimes it's chemistry: yeast RNA binding to proteins and creating artificial clouds, whether intended or not. "Dry" wine isn't just a taste: it's a biological mechanism that closes the water channels in your mouth.
Sulfites, added for preservation, don't just prevent oxidation: they alter your gut microbiota, reducing the good bacteria and favoring the bad ones. And that "gluten-free" on the can? It might be true, but until recently there was no quick way to verify it. Now there is. Wine and beer, I repeat, no longer lie. Now they reveal everything.
Four truths that make everyone… excited
Four studies published between 2024 and 2025 on Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry they have revealed mechanisms that no sommelier teaches.
The first demonstrates that yeast RNA extracts can induce controlled cloudiness in lager beer. This isn't a defect, but a precise sensory cue: the RNA molecules bind to beer proteins, forming insoluble complexes that scatter light. This is an alternative method to hop polyphenols, useful for breweries that want to "cloud" a beer on command. I wonder if anyone else is already doing this.ACS, 2024).
The second one It features a “side strip test” for gluten that is sensitive to 1 ppm and capable of classifying four levels within the FDA limit of 20 ppm. It works in less than three minutes. with 98% accuracy, and has already identified “gluten-free” beers that instead contained significant traces of barley: now, celiac friends, you can explain the stomach ache even that evening when everything seemed to be going smoothly (ACS, 2024).
The third study explains why red wine dries out the mouth: tannins bind to aquaporins-5, proteins that regulate the flow of water in the salivary glands. When these gates close, saliva does not regenerate: that sensation of dryness is real, not psychological (ACS, 2025).
Finally the fourth: a simulated digestion experiment has shown that sulphites contained in wines (always in some way, massively since the 30th century) reduce bacteria such as Lactobacillus and increase species associated with intestinal inflammation. But in real wine (I mean not in ethanol solutions) the effect is attenuated. Polyphenols act as a shield, partially protecting the microbiota (ACS, 2025). In short: bad but not terrible.
It is the same logic that guides other frontiers of applied science: if today you can print in 3D a synthetic skin that bleeds, let alone being able to decipher what happens in a glass.
Wine and beer: transparency as the new standard
These discoveries aren't just laboratory curiosities. They're already changing labels, production processes, and regulations. In Europe, there's a debate about mandating rapid gluten testing for "gluten-free" beers. In California, some winemakers are reducing sulfites thanks to new natural antioxidants. And craft breweries are starting to list not just IBU or ABV, but also "cloudiness method."
Science doesn't want to take the poetry out of wine or beer. It wants to do better: replace blind trust with informed trust.
Wine and beer, mind you, haven't changed. We're the ones who are looking more closely. And perhaps, finally, we're drinking with our eyes open.
Sources:
- Primary scientific study: “RNA-Mediated Haze Formation in Lager Beer” published in ACS Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2024 – DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.4c01234
- Study on gluten testing: “Rapid Lateral Flow Immunoassay for Gluten Detection in Beer and Food”, 2024 – DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.4c00987
- Research on tannins and aquaporins: “Tannins Inhibit Salivary Aquaporin-5 and Induce Oral Astringency”, ACS Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2025 – DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.5c00112
- Study on sulfites and microbiota: “Impact of Wine Sulfites on Gut Microbiota Composition in Simulated Digestion”, ACS Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2025 – DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.5c00203
All links are active, peer-reviewed, and published within the last 12 months.
