Does beer contain formaldehyde as a preservative?

No, the preservatives in beer are typically alcohol and hops. Beer is also kept safe from spoilage by sealing it in an airtight, ideally oxygen free environment like a bottle, can or keg. read more

Extensive tests are run to make sure the lubricant and additives taste like formaldehyde. "It's not that it tastes okay. It's just what people are used to tasting," he says. (Miller Genuine Draft and similar brews, Schmid says, use biocides that have no flavor.) The formaldehyde flavor legacy is one little-known aspect of can-making. read more

Donhauser and co-workers9 examined beers from Europe, using a HPLC method, and showed that 65% of them contained detectable formaldehyde, although in many the level was close to the detection limit of 0.2 mg/L. (Donhauser, S., Glas, K. and Walla, G., Detection of formaldehyde in beer. read more