Cadaverine: When your beer smells like dead human

In my everyday quest to create content, I found myself surfing the various YouTube pages of my favorite breweries and organizations until I abruptly stopped at “Cadaverine.” It sounded like a new Cronenberg film (father or son), and it’s not unlike body horror. The new video was just uploaded by the Siebel Institute of Technology, which has been releasing a lot of super helpful educational modules on off-flavors and off-aromas in beer. Cadaverine is one of these off-aromas. It’s when your beer has the sensory characteristics of “rotten meat, prawn, boiled shrimp water, dead animal or dead human,” according to the video above.

Luckily for all of us, cadaverine is not often encountered in beer. Cadaverine is actually a ptomaine formed in the decay of animal proteins after death, but lactic acid bacteria can cause cadaverine in beer. It can maybe happen in sour beer production, where bacteria strains can be incorrectly applied, or in spontaneously fermented beer that rely on wild yeasts and bacteria to ferment beer. Conventional brewing yeasts won’t produce cadaverine — it’s something most craft brewers won’t ever worry about — but if you’re using wild yeast there is … dramatic pause … the rare possibility.

Learn more in the video above — if you dare. Then surf over to Siebel Institute of Technology’s YouTube page for more great videos.