Abstract:The non-volatile chemical components of 19 beer samples from 4 brands were analyzed by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry（UPLC-Q-TOF-MS） to investigate the differences of non-volatile chemical components in different brands of beer.The Agilent ZORBAX Eclipse Plus C18column（2.1mm×50mm，1.8μm）and acetonitrile-water（both containing0.1% formic acid）were used as the mobile phases with mass spectrometry performed in positive ion mode.Molecular feature extraction（MFE）of the raw data using MassHunter Profinder software yielded 2 477 compounds，of which 1 056 had significant group differences（P＜0.05，fold change≥2）.Eleven differential compounds were inferred from Venn diagrams of four brands of beer，including four in brand 1，three in brand 3，four in brand 4，and no differential compounds in brand 2.The compounds with significant differences were further subjected to principal component analysis （PCA）and cluster analysis using the statistical software Mass Profiler Professional（MPP）.The results showed that the samples strongly clustered by brand.This study lays the foundation for identifying different brands of beer based on characteristic markers in beer as well as providing a scientific basis for the regulation and quality control of the beer market.