Vermont

As most of you already know, I'm in the running for a 9-month job at the Otter Creek brewery in Middlebury, VT. I've already had a phone interview, which went well, and I'm flying out there on Tuesday to meet the crew in person. It sounds like I'm in the lead for the position, and that meeting them next week is mostly just a sanity check for all parties. The job is slated to start on March 1st so, if I get the job, I'll be leaving Madison in about a month. Now for the backstory.

For a while now, I've been planning two breweries on paper: a brewpub and a packaging brewery. I want to have both options open if the right opportunities arise, but going the packaging route is more attractive to me at this point. The problem is that I don't have any experience with packaging, or the design and operation of a brewery that accommodates it. There are several ways to educate myself about it:

-Take a hardcore brewing course. The class I took in Chicago was a two-week overview of brewing operations. What I'm talking about here would be 4-5 months. At UC Davis, in California, the cost would be about $13K plus living expenses.
-Hire a consultant, who would be paid by the hour. I'll probably work with one regardless, to get quick answers to very specific questions, but there's a lot of money to be lost by using a consultant as a teacher.
-Find a job and get paid not only to learn, but to learn by doing. The downside is time.

Working at Otter Creek is ideal for many reasons:

-Rachel and I want to stay in Madison for a while. Knowledge-wise, I got what I needed out of Whitney's after 2-3 months. A 9-month job is the shortest I've ever seen advertised, and there will be no expectation for me to stick around afterward.
-They brew 50 times the amount of beer that Whitney's brews each year, but their brewing equipment is only 4 times the size. The do so by brewing 5 times a day, and transferring (moving beer into bottles or kegs) at the same time as they brew. The equipment at Whitney's could kick out one brew and two transfers each day, or two brews and one transfer, but not a brew and transfer at the same time. In the case of both breweries, "each day" means "in a 24-hour period". It'll be fascinating to learn how Otter Creek's equipment is set up and and how the brewers operate it.
-They brew a line of organic beers, which is an idea that I've been playing with. The brewmaster wants organic brewing to become a movement (as opposed to just his competitive edge), and told me that he's more than willing to help me get into it. His knowledge and industry contacts will be really valuable down the road.
-In addition to his work at Otter Creek, the brewmaster runs a brewing school! It's called the American Brewers Guild and I considered taking their online course before I won a scholarship to Siebel. In other words, I'm going to be exposed to all kinds of science at work. My current boss knows the science, but doesn't much use it.

I'm not at all excited about leaving Rachel for 9 months, but everything else about the job is exactly what I want. The good news is that Otter Creek will pay me way more than I'm making now. The extra money alone will be more than enough for an apartment, and hopefully enough for a lot of plane travel. When I get back to Madison next Dec/Jan, I'll make opening a brewery my full-time job. That is, if I get the job :).