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Biogenic amines are produced by all living things and are present in many fermented foods and beverages. The biogenic amines that are primarily produced in fermented foods are histamine, tyramine, cadaverine and putrescine. These are produced by microorganisms that can decarboxylate amino acids, and thus their levels in some foods (particularly fish and chicken) are one potential indicator of food freshness or microbiological cleanliness. High dosages can lead to health issues associated with food poisoning or allergic-like reactions such as vomiting, headache, respiratory distress, asthma, hypertension, hypotension, and cardiac palpitation. Thus, biogenic amines have been studied intensely. Biogenic amines in spontaneously fermented beers are produced mostly by enterobacteria, but lactic acid bacteria and yeasts can also produce them. Wort that is pre-acidified greatly reduces the production of biogenic amines, but small levels can still be found. These levels are below the levels found in cheese and fermented sausage and are well below the levels that are acceptable for health <ref name="Wade_2018">[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajgw.12366 Role of Pediococcus in winemaking. M.E. Wade, M.T. Strickland, J.P. Osborn, C.G. Edwards. 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajgw.12366.]</ref><ref name="loret_2005">[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0308814604002365 Levels of biogenic amines as a measure of the quality of the beer fermentation process: Data from Belgian samples. S. Loret, P. Deloyer, G. Dandrifosse. 2005.]</ref>.
Some government regulations and rules exist for upper limits of hystamine in meat and fish (although these limits could be applied to other food products). For example, histamine levels in meat and fish must be less than 50 mg/kg in the US and less than 200 mg/kg in the UK <ref>[https://www.mdpi.com/2304-8158/8/2/62/htm Impact of Biogenic Amines on Food Quality and Safety. Claudia Ruiz-Capillas and Ana M. Herrero. 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/foods8020062.]</ref>. Some countries have set an upper limit of histamine in wine to be anywhere from 2-10 mg/l <ref>[https://ifst.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ijfs.12833 Biogenic amines in wine: a review. Yan‐Yun Guo, Yan‐Ping Yang, Qian Peng, Ye Han. 2015.]</ref>. Loret et al. (2005) quotes the upper limit of individual amines to generally be safe for consumption to be at below 10 mg/l <ref name="loret_2005" />.
Loret et al (2005) examined the levels of biogenic amines in Belgian beers, including lagers, traditional ales, bottle conditioned ales, and spontaneously fermented beer (presumably lambic). They found that spontaneously fermented beers, which were 42 samples out of the total 297 samples and from 10 different breweries, generally contained the most biogenic amines, namely tyramine (associated with hypertension), histamine (associated with hypotension), and cadaverine. However, not all of these breweries produced higher levels of amines, suggesting that processing in some breweries is limiting the biogenic amine production (this process was not identified in the Loret et al study, but the process is likely to be the lowering of the wort pH to 4.5 to limit the enterobacteria phase). For example, 6 of the spontaneous fermentation breweries had levels of histamine as an average between 20-45 mg/l, and levels of tyamine between 30-60 mg/l, which is higher than the upper limit that is generally considered to be safe for consumers (this upper limit was stated as 10 mg/l by Loret et al.). The other 4 breweries had levels of histamine and tyramine between 0-20 mg/L, as an average. Interestingly, they also found that a small number of ales and bottle conditioned ales, 21 out of 220 samples, also had levels of tyamine above the upper limit of 10 mg/l. None of the lagers sampled had biogenic amines above 10 mg/l <ref name="loret_2005" />.