Louis
Posts: 6436
Joined: Jan. 2006
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Tracy H,
Nice looking talk. I hope (speaking as a natural products chemist) it touched on the ring contraction isomerism of humulones in the boiling wort to produce iso-humulones (part of the important bitter flavours in beer) and that "light struck" beer flavours result from the photolytic Norrish type 1 cleavage (of interest to a quantum chemist such as yourself no doubt) of iso-humuones to produce dehydro humulinic acid and (usually) 3-methylbut-2-ene-1-thiol.
Sorry my biases are showing. During my PhD I was trying to synthesise a natural product that contains a cyclopentanone and biosyntheses of cyclopentanoid natural products were obviously part of my broader research effort. The ring contraction from phenolic humulones to cyclopentanoid iso-humulones was one of my favourite biological mechanisms for producing cyclopentanoid molecules. Not that I used it with any success (I went a different route) but still an intellectually interesting one for me.
Louis
P.S. Added in edit: Ah I see on reading your flyer you DID discuss these things. Mmmmmm ring-contraction-a-licious!
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Bye.
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