Histamine reduction in drinks: what histamine is, why it ends up in beverages, and how it can be safely removed

February 16, 2026

Histamine reduction in drinks: what histamine is, why it ends up in beverages, and how it can be safely removed

Author: Martin Trinker

If you have ever heard someone say “red wine makes me flush,” “beer sometimes gives me headaches,” or “I can’t tolerate kombucha anymore,” histamine is one of the compounds that often gets mentioned. Histamine is a recurring and costly pain point in fermented liquids (and other liquid food matrices), and producers have surprisingly few practical ways to remove it once it is already there. This blog explains, what histamine is, how it forms in food and drinks, when it becomes a problem (from acute “histamine poisoning” to histamine intolerance linked to low DAO activity), and why the ability to offer histamine-reduced or even near-histamine-free beverages could become a real competitive advantage.

What is histamine?

Histamine is a small, biologically active molecule known as a “biogenic amine.” Your body produces it for important functions: it plays roles in immune responses (including allergic reactions), gastric acid secretion, and neurotransmission.

But histamine can also come from the outside – especially from microbes. Many bacteria can generate histamine by converting the amino acid histidine into histamine using an enzyme called histidine decarboxylase.

That microbial route is the key to understanding why histamine appears in fermented foods and drinks, and why it can sometimes spike to troublesome levels.

How does histamine get into food and beverages?

Histamine formation generally needs three ingredients: histidine (which is common in protein-rich raw materials), microbes that carry histidine decarboxylase, and conditions where those microbes can grow or stay metabolically active. Thus, in protein-containing foods that allow microbial activity, histamine can be expected, and the amount depends strongly on the food matrix and the microbes present.

Fermented drinks: the “microbial side effect” of creating flavour

Fermentation is what gives many beloved beverages their complexity and taste. But fermentation also creates opportunities for biogenic amines – including histamine – to accumulate.

In wine, research and reviews describe biogenic amines as being produced by yeasts and especially by lactic acid bacteria, with lactic acid bacteria often highlighted as major contributors to histamine formation. A particularly important risk window discussed in the wine microbiology literature is malolactic fermentation, where lactic acid bacteria are intentionally encouraged (for acidity reduction and flavour/mouthfeel development), yet some strains can also contribute to histamine production.

Beer, cider, perry, sake, kombucha, kefir, and basically all other fermented beverages can face similar dynamics: microbial diversity and process conditions that make a beverage interesting can also make biogenic amines harder to control.

Fish sauce and brines: the “histamine classic” and why regulators care

Histamine is also famous in the context of fish and seafood because it can build up when fish is mishandled or stored too warm. In that setting, bacteria convert histidine (naturally present in fish) into histamine, and cooking or freezing cannot remove what has already formed. Public health resources describe this as “scombroid (histamine) poisoning,” with rapid-onset allergy-like symptoms after eating fish with high histamine levels. Because this can be a genuine food safety issue, histamine is one of the few biogenic amines that is regulated in specific product categories. EU rules include food safety criteria and sampling plans for histamine in certain fishery products, and the EU has updated specific criteria for fish sauce produced by fermentation to align with Codex recommendations. The important takeaway message is: histamine is treated seriously by regulators when levels can exceed safe thresholds, and when that happens, the consequences are product holds, export barriers, reputational risk, and lost revenue.

When is histamine actually a problem for people?

Histamine-related problems in the real world fall into two broad buckets that are often confused.

1) Acute histamine poisoning: “too much histamine at once”

Scombroid poisoning is the classic example. Symptoms can include flushing, headache, rash/itching, abdominal cramps, and diarrhea soon after consumption; it often resembles an allergic reaction. It is linked to high histamine levels caused by improper storage/handling and subsequent bacterial activity. This is mainly a food safety scenario.

2) Histamine intolerance: “histamine load exceeds your ability to break it down”

Histamine intolerance is generally described as a condition where the body’s capacity to metabolize ingested histamine is overwhelmed – often associated with reduced activity of diamine oxidase (DAO), an enzyme important for degrading histamine in the gut/extracellular space.

The symptom picture can be broad and “allergy-like,” including headaches, gastrointestinal discomfort, flushing, and other reactions, and it can vary strongly between individuals. Reviews discussing DAO deficiency emphasize that when DAO activity is insufficient, histamine can accumulate and trigger symptoms in sensitive individuals.

Histamine intolerance is not as simple as “X mg/L is always fine” for everyone. There is a wide variability in doses and interactions with other biogenic amines that can compete with histamine degradation.

For producers, however, the market implication is straightforward: even if only a fraction of consumers are sensitive, they are highly motivated, they actively search for “better tolerated” products, and they tend to become loyal customers when they find options that work for them.

Why “histamine-reduced” drinks are attractive

Imagine being able to offer wine, beer, cider, kombucha, or sake with reliably lower histamine—without stripping flavour, without slowing production lines, and without adding a complicated post-processing stage. That would matter for at least three reasons. First, it would reduce the risk of batch-to-batch surprises. Histamine is often a “late discovery” problem: you may not know a batch is high until analytics flag it, at which point options are limited and expensive. Second, it would protect brands in export and retail environments where histamine specifications, customer expectations, or buyer requirements become tighter. Third, it would open a clear consumer promise: more people could enjoy fermented drinks that otherwise avoid them due to intolerance-like reactions associated with histamine load and reduced DAO activity.

So why isn’t this already standard?

Because current levers tend to fall into two imperfect categories: prevention and late-stage intervention.

Prevention strategies can be very effective, but they mainly reduce formation rather than remove histamine already present. In wine, for example, published work and industry guidance emphasize fermentation management, hygiene, and careful choice of starter cultures to lower the risk of biogenic amine formation, including histamine.

Late-stage interventions exist (fining/adsorption approaches, electrodialysis-type methods, enzymatic degradation concepts, or other remediation steps), but they often carry trade-offs in sensory impact, cost, complexity, or retrofit difficulty – especially when you want something that works as a simple, scalable unit operation on real production lines.

This gap i.e. a practical, in-process removal step that preserves flavor and line speed, is exactly what is missing in today’s toolbox.

An innovative “contact-and-capture” magnetic histamine removal

In the lab of Prof. Dr. Sebastian Schwaminger in Graz a new and fast in-process step, designed for liquid matrices has been validated: polymer-coated, superparamagnetic iron-oxide nanoparticles that bind histamine in minutes and are then removed with a magnet. The concept is intentionally simple from an operator’s point of view. You introduce a short contact step where the particles mix with the beverage or liquid matrix. Histamine binds to the particle surface. Then you apply magnetic separation to pull the particles back out, removing the bound histamine with them. Because the particles are superparamagnetic, they can be captured efficiently with a magnet, enabling high-throughput separation without adding slow filtration steps. If required, the process and the particles can even be fine-tuned by polymer chemistry and particle size.

Why magnetic removal is such a good fit for beverages

The “magic” here is not only that adsorption exists – adsorption is well known. The advantage is that magnetic recovery can be extremely fast and clean, which matters for beverages where producers care about line speed, clarity, and sensory integrity.

The offer highlights several practical goals that reflect real industry pain points.

It is designed to be fast, preserving line speed.
It aims to preserve sensory quality (flavour and mouthfeel), a key risk with many remediation techniques.
It provides a tunable lever on histamine specs, rather than a “one shot” approach that may over-correct or under-deliver.
It is positioned as compatible with challenging beverage conditions, as it does not rely on dissolved oxygen and produces no reactive by-products — important because those issues can break many otherwise promising solutions.

What kinds of products could benefit?

So far all “liquid matrices,” including fish/soy sauce, fishery brines, and fermented drinks such as wine and beer, cider, perry, sake, mead, kombucha, kefir, kvass, pulque, tepache, and many others you’ve probably not heard from, yet. The “common denominator” is any product where histamine can accumulate, where exceedances can cause holds or market barriers, and where a retrofit-friendly in-process step would be more practical than redesigning the entire fermentation ecosystem.

How development would work in practice: short pilots, real liquids, fast learning

acib is offering a co-development program featuring Prof. Schwaminger’s know-how and expertise to fine-tuned such a solution to the partner’s specific beverage matrix and constraints. Such a collaboration would include to benchmark histamine baselines and sensory constraints, engineer and screen matrix-specific adsorbents for capacity and selectivity, optimize contact time and solids loading (and regeneration cycles where useful), and then deliver a tech-transfer package with QA analytics and a scale-up plan. This is important because “histamine removal” is not just about binding histamine in a lab buffer. Real beverages contain many compounds that could compete for binding sites or affect separation. That is why acib’s offer is explicitly designed around validation “in real broth,” not only in model solutions, where it already succeeded. By the way: any IP generated in the project, can be fully transferred to the respective project partner.

The bigger vision: a new category of “better tolerated” fermented drinks

For consumers with histamine intolerance concerns—especially those who suspect lower DAO activity plays a role—having reliably histamine-reduced beverages would be more than a nice feature. It could be the difference between avoiding an entire drink category and being able to enjoy it again. For producers, the prize is equally concrete: fewer holds, tighter specs, stronger brand protection, and a differentiated product story that is rooted in a measurable compositional improvement rather than vague marketing language.

Let’s work together, in making this vision a reality! Here you will find our related tech offer.

Picture by acib