Abstract:Liquid-liquid extraction-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry（LLE-GC-MS）was used to semiquantitatively determine 27 volatile compounds with malt aroma characteristics in 12 kinds of beers（three styles，international lager-German stout/Munich dark lager（lager-b），dark/light wheat beer（wheat），and international lager-light lager（lager-p），and the relative odor activity value（ROAV）was used to screen out the active substance with malt aroma characteristics from the beer. The relationship between the active substance with malt aroma characteristics and malt aroma intensity was established. The results of the clustering heat map and principal components analysis（PCA）of the volatile compounds with malt aroma characteristics showed that the determined composition of the 27 volatile compounds with malt aroma characteristics could help distinguish the style of beer，and there were significant differences in the content of 21 volatile compounds with malt aroma characteristics in the three styles of beer（p<0.05）. Hexanal，n-nonanald，4-hydroxy-2，5-dimethyl-3（2H）-furanone，and γ-nonanolactone were the active substances（ROAV≥1）common to the three styles of beer.Vanillin and sotolon were the active substances unique to lager-b and wheat.3-methylthiopropanol was an active substance unique to wheat，and its content was much higher than that of lager beer，which could be used as a flavor marker of wheat.The results of correlation analysis of ROAV and malt aroma intensity showed that γ-nonanolactone，sotolon，and 4-hydroxy-2，5-dimethyl-3（2H）-furanone were positively correlated with malt aroma intensity of the beer，and n-nonanaldehyde was negatively correlated with malt aroma intensity.These four substances could be used as indicators to evaluate the malt aroma intensity of the beer.