Abstract
Since beer is being advertised by several commercial companies as a source of vitamins, it is desirable to have quantitative information on its vitamin content. The only published studies on this question were made on European beers more than 8 years ago. Scheunert and Schieblich 1 and also Southgate 2 demonstrated vitamins of the B complex in beer and reported further that A and C are very low or absent. On the other hand, Harden and Zilva, 3 while agreeing on the absence of C, were unable to find B in the beer which they examined.
In the present study, the B-complex concentration of several commercial beers was determined by the rat-growth method. Other points studied were a comparison of pasteurized and unpasteurized beer, the effect of filtration through paper in removing vitamins, and the relative concentrations of B and G.
Experimental methods. Healthy albino rats, weighting 35 to 45 gm. were weaned when 21 days old and depleted of vitamins of the B complex on the following basal diet:
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