Back from Beer Camp

A very small part of my psyche is bummin' because I can't claim to be a self-taught brewer any more, but the rest of me is pretty stoked about beer school. Being a course geared towards professional brewers with sufficient practical experience but scattered theoretical knowledge, a fair amount of the material was review for me. The rest of it did a good job of filling my knowledge gaps concerning things that most homebrewers don't bother with, either because of scale (using pumps to move vast quantities of liquid) or money (no fancy lab equipment to analyze yeast health). Lectures on the brewing process were nicely punctuated with subjects like equipment design, quality assurance, packaging, draft systems and sensory analysis. Yeah, I know what you're thinking about "sensory analysis." I'll have you know that if my taste buds were more sophisticated (like Rachel's), I'd have had to sample some pretty nasty stuff in the name of science. Thankfully, my taste buds aren't very sophisticated and most of it tasted pretty much like beer to me :).

The Siebel Institute, where I took my class, also offers a twelve-week diploma course that includes practical brewery work and classes in Germany. The long session would certainly be more intensive (I did feel like my teachers were blowing by some interesting material due to time constraints), but the short course did a good job of laying out the groundwork for things that I can study independently. Planting the seed, if you will. Sara, I may need to steal my fancy brewing book back from you to check a few specifics - I have a newfound interest in yeast metabolism, among other things *pushes glasses up nose and makes a nasal sound*.

This is getting long, but I've gotta say that the other students in my course were really cool. They came from all over the country, plus Brazil, and most of them were usually inclined to go out after school and have a good time. Chicago has some great bars, especially if you're into Belgian beers. John and Dan, thanks for letting me crash in your living rooms! The $90/night that other students were paying to stay at a @$%# Days Inn seemed out of control to me. Of course, a lot of them were being reimbursed by their breweries. I didn't even ask, because I already knew the answer.

The greatest value that I'll get out of the class, by far, hasn't happened yet. If I decide to open my own brewery someday, the resources that the class provided will be indespensible in designing the place and knowing what to talk about when dealing with manufacturers and consultants. Yay for beer school!