starting a university beer club

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brewshki

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Hi everyone,

Ive been a member here for a while and have absolutely loved getting involved with this hobby. (we haven't permanently replaced hobby with obsession yet right?) anyway, the reason i am starting this thread is because i am trying to start a home brewing club at my university.

this was the only time this forum has failed me. i immediately tried searching here for some sort of thread about attempts at doing what i am trying to do. I expected to see many failed attempts and maybe one or two successes, but i got nothing! that of course is not an insult to the forum, just an area of improvement that i feel capable of filling.

So, whether or not any of you are interested, I am starting a thread about it! and I'm going to do my best to outline the entire process from start to finish with all the nasty and awesome parts in between. I will be following shortly with another post to this thread but i thought i would get the ball rolling.

Wish me luck!
 
i just recently thought about starting a home brewing club on my college campus when i was trying to figure out what i was going to do for my senior year. I am an junior accounting major and have had a vigorous course load the past few years, have been very involved in my school's student government, and been in a fraternity. (no it wasn't crazy, more boring than anything else)

because of all of these things, i have always been about as busy as you can imagine. i took up brewing on a fluke and totally loved it. because i accelerated my course schedule these past few years, i have reached a point where i have already taken the majority of the classes i need to graduate. that got me thinking about how to stay busy for my final year.

and of course, i thought about home brewing. because of my involvement in student government, i am very aware about the club process on my campus and thought why not?! it would be a lot of fun to find people who share a common interest and get to be the person who starts an organization.

I talked to the people in our student services department and they gave me a few things to work on:
  • look for similar organizations at other shcools
  • make sure that this does not violate university policy or CA law
  • come up with what the club would do
  • find out if there are any food safety issues
  • and a few other things

so thats where i am at now
 
Well i am making some progress. I emailed two people who i have never met who are the presidents of clubs at other universities and was once again astounded at how helpful the home-brew community is. at least in the early stages haha. so far i have just fired some questions off and i am waiting to see what responses they come up with.

My newest question is what i want this club to be about. Initially, I wanted to make a club that could meet together and actually brew. Meaning we could get funding from our student government and actually brew together. There are obvious issues with that and now i am wondering if it should be more just of a beer education club. topics would range from how to home-brew to history of beer and everything in between. just general musings but something to ponder at the very least.
 
I find it a bit humorous that the thread is about building a homebrew club at a university and the thread is riddled with capitalization errors. :drunk:

Really it is your club and you can do whatever you want with it. You can get together and share beer, run club competitions, do a club variety pack (Christmas, etc), take tours of breweries, host a Big Brew, etc.
 
I find it a bit humorous that the thread is about building a homebrew club at a university and the thread is riddled with capitalization errors. :drunk:

Really it is your club and you can do whatever you want with it. You can get together and share beer, run club competitions, do a club variety pack (Christmas, etc), take tours of breweries, host a Big Brew, etc.

that must be what happens when you are an accounting major and writing in an informal manner on a forum! ;). i concede the point but counter with how few cares i have.

Unfortunately, it really isn't that simple. if i wanted to start a home-brew club not connected with my university, it really would be very simple. However, because i want to use my school as a primary place to draw members and I'm hoping to swindle some funding from them, i have to play by their rules.

What my research is showing me is that as long as federal, state, and local laws are followed, there have been some successful clubs. They do avoid brewing on campus, which seems logical, and have actually been part of events on campus where they have been able to contribute beer.

i really do like your ideas of events to have. i think things like that can only strengthen what i am hoping to do.
 
I have found people who are interested in joining! There are about 20 people who are interested in brewing and joining the group so i can finally bounce some ideas off of people and actually get something done.

it is looking like it will be very easy for the club to exist. There really is no issue with a group of people getting together to talk about brewing. unfortunately, some of the more fun things may be harder.

I have contacted the university and told them that in my ideal world, the group would be able to hold events that serve beer on campus. so far, no response and I am really not sure if that is allowed under CA law. i know there are issues about beer being allowed to be taken out of the home, but I really am not fluent on the laws.

we will see
 
What school?

BTW I would suggest getting either the biology, chemistry, or mechanical engineering folks involved ;-)

Chapman University in Orange County. My plan is to have a Chemistry professor as an advisor. Unfortunately, we are too small for them engineering folks. We do have a few chemistry people interested though!
 
I finally have been given some direction by the university!!!!! The first main step they needed from me (I am still not sure why it took them so long to tell me) is to create a risk management proposal.

This is a kind of annoying step but I am writing it in a much more entertaining way than it deserves. I was trying to think of the main risks involved with brewing and I decided that the best analogy would be cooking. Therefore, many of my examples include basic common sense that many people use all the time while cooking. Whatever makes the university happy right? The second half of the proposal is dealing with alcohol consumption and attending events where alcohol is served. I am planning on having a lot of fun with this section. One person mentioned food safety which I found to be very funny. I do hope my club members are smart enough to know when their beer gets infected and they shouldnt drink it... It is also funny because the very nature of brewing makes the product free of most germs (because of the alcohol) unless your yeast had to compete in the early going (generalizing of course).

but i am on my way and making real strides.

If anyone has any entertaining risks they feel would be applicable, please let me know!!!
 
Not sure if this is applicable to California but in Oregon it's illegal for anyone under 21 to pitch yeast into wort. We have a fermentation science club at Oregon State where students can use the pilot plant (we have a 5 bbl pilot brewery in my department's building) to brew wort. Everyone brings a carboy or bucket to get filled with the finished wort. People then bring them home and pitch the yeast themselves.

That's how my school's club is allowed to let people under 21 participate. If you want to do a homebrew club and not restrict it to 21+ this is probably the best way to do it.

:mug:
 
I do hope my club members are smart enough to know when their beer gets infected and they shouldnt drink it...


Please don't add this into your risk management proposal. Infected beer will not make you sick (unless you drink enough for the alcohol to do the job). Most/all sour beers would be considered "infected".
 
Not sure if this is applicable to California but in Oregon it's illegal for anyone under 21 to pitch yeast into wort. We have a fermentation science club at Oregon State where students can use the pilot plant (we have a 5 bbl pilot brewery in my department's building) to brew wort. Everyone brings a carboy or bucket to get filled with the finished wort. People then bring them home and pitch the yeast themselves.

That's how my school's club is allowed to let people under 21 participate. If you want to do a homebrew club and not restrict it to 21+ this is probably the best way to do it.

:mug:

that is actually the same here. we don't have classes like that though so we are having problems seeing if we can actually brew on campus. are you a part of the club? i am trying to show my university examples of other schools and how they deal with risk. is there anyway you could get a hand on those documents and send them my way? or put me in contact with those people?
 
Please don't add this into your risk management proposal. Infected beer will not make you sick (unless you drink enough for the alcohol to do the job). Most/all sour beers would be considered "infected".

you are going to laugh, but this was one of the first things the university was worried about. They were really worried about food safety. I basically just explained that with proper sanitation, this shouldnt happen. I also talked about that infected batches (excluding sours of course) simply taste bad and cannot hurt people. i know it is silly, but sometimes you have to play by someone else's stupid rules.
 
you are going to laugh, but this was one of the first things the university was worried about. They were really worried about food safety. I basically just explained that with proper sanitation, this shouldnt happen. I also talked about that infected batches (excluding sours of course) simply taste bad and cannot hurt people. i know it is silly, but sometimes you have to play by someone else's stupid rules.


I completely understand their concerns, lots of liability between alcohol and food. If you really want to put the issue to bed with the university, put together your own mini-HACCP plan together to explain the risks, and how to prevent them.
 
that is actually the same here. we don't have classes like that though so we are having problems seeing if we can actually brew on campus. are you a part of the club? i am trying to show my university examples of other schools and how they deal with risk. is there anyway you could get a hand on those documents and send them my way? or put me in contact with those people?

Sent you a PM with some contact info for the club president

:mug:
 
Penn State supposedly has a brewing club recently started, but it is only open to uh...hotel & hospitality management major I believe. Even wine appreciated courses are only offered to that major, it's stupid. I assume that the university is worried about the alcohol aspect, but it totally kills the ability to reach interested members IMO.

We do have a wine appreciation club, though, that started last school year. The faculty sponsor hasn't been involved at all besides the initial creation that I've seen. We've done winery tours, a lot of information about styles of wine, winemaking basics, etc. Competitions and anything dealing with alcohol are kind of unofficial and done off campus. I'm not sure if the "appreciation" part is the reason why we haven't had issues or what.
 
I completely understand their concerns, lots of liability between alcohol and food. If you really want to put the issue to bed with the university, put together your own mini-HACCP plan together to explain the risks, and how to prevent them.

what exactly is an HACCP plan? i have been putting together a risk proposal thing about the risks and how to prevent them but I am honestly having a hard time coming up with risks of brewing. Hot liquid? Burning yourself? I cannot think of much more. Even infected beer has no real risk as I mentioned before. I even tried googling it for a while and got almost nothing.
 
HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point. Think about any potential chemical, physical and biological hazards, and at what point in the process those hazards can be controlled. For example, glass shards could be a contaminant in recycled bottles. A control would be to rinse the bottles before filling. Think about the risks to the people consuming the club's beer.
 
HACCP at a very basic level is a plan that lays out all the potential risks at each step in the process and what must be done to ensure the final product is safe. Now I wouldn't put together a full plan (that would be way too large of a scope), but lay out some risks and where they would occur, and what can be done to prevent.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HACCP
 
I met with some people from the university today and it feels like we actually got somewhere. We put together a risk management proposal and now that is being looked at by the next level higher. Unfortunately, it has another level to go to once they have given their suggestions which can take as long as a week.

On a brighter note, we had our first unofficial meeting and it was a ton of fun. One person was really into it and looks like he will be really active. Most others were much more interested in the craft beer aspect of the club but I think the brewing interest will increase overtime. As long as steps are being taken, I guess it is fine that they are baby steps.

thinking about brewing a stout this weekend. gotta keep feeding the hobby
 
well, it is looking extremely depressing. My proposal and all of the paperwork I have been working on has gone to my University's Risk Manager and the Dean of Students. I was informed that they had serious concerns about the club. That was all of the information I was given. I asked if there was anymore information or documentation I could provide and they told me no. I asked if someone would like to meet with me to ask questions and they said no. I asked if there was any timeline and they said no.

Unfortunately, I think that my school is trying to kill this by waiting me out. It is really depressing on multiple levels. I understand that they think there is a lot of liability, no other school has had this issue but I can theoretically understand, but I do not understand why they just can't say no. It is such an underhanded way of going about things. If it is going to be a no 6 months from now, they should man up and tell me now to my face.

The worst part is that I have some people who are legitimately interested and now I am going to have to tell them that there really is nothing I can do.

At the very least, I am having lots of fun brewing. I am finally getting comfortable with all of my processes and I am making beer that I actually really like drinking and sharing. Im toying with moving up to 5 gallon batches because 2 is just seeming like so little beer. I am dangerously close to buying some hop rhizomes but something is stopping me. I washed some hefe yeast from a previous batch and may be using it tomorrow once my fermenter is empty of the current stout in it.

I may be being thwarted in my attempts to start a brew club, but at least I am having a lot of fun.
 
I did it!!!!! I have officially gotten a Home Brewing Club approved at my university. I have been working on this since about January of this year, and every little bit of paperwork is out of the way. We can start meeting at doing almost anything we want. Almost is the key word here as the university is not quite sure what to do for certain things. We are only a 21+ club. They are very worried about what happens if members have a brew day and that beer falls into the hands of a minor. They are also worried about tasting days and the possible implications of everyone drinking too much or a minor being there.

the important part is that we exist!!!!
 
I did it!!!!! I have officially gotten a Home Brewing Club approved at my university. I have been working on this since about January of this year, and every little bit of paperwork is out of the way. We can start meeting at doing almost anything we want. Almost is the key word here as the university is not quite sure what to do for certain things. We are only a 21+ club. They are very worried about what happens if members have a brew day and that beer falls into the hands of a minor. They are also worried about tasting days and the possible implications of everyone drinking too much or a minor being there.

the important part is that we exist!!!!

Congratulations on the creation of your club! Have you picked a name yet?

As a former Risk Management chair of my fraternity there are many easy ways to handle the administrations concerns. For instance, on brew days ensuring the fermenting wort stays with A. Someone who is 21 B. Keeping it in the kitchen area of the school (if the chefs allow it), C. Having the advisor take care of it.

As far as tastings go you can make sure to have someone checking ID's at the door. Not allowing anyone under 21 to taste without tickets or wristbands. Also, having someone sober at the event and coordinating driving home would also help. Hope some of this helps and congrats again!
 
For brew days it really doesn't make sense to pitch the yeast on premise. If you're just making wort there should be no concern who gets it, since it is just sugar water. If anyone at the University complains I would be quick to point out that cafeterias, bookstores, etc. sell fruit juice in bottles (i.e. apple juice) that could just as easily be used to make alcohol.
 
We are all good to have brew days. They can't be on campus, but we can do it at member houses. There was also a worry about group brew being dispersed and it being handed to minors. We now have a log that will people will have to check beer out of.
 
Congrats on seeing this through! I also work at a university and I know the challenges of dealing with upper admin types.

I'm very impressed that you were so successful in this. You might think about gifting a few bottles to some of the folks who were involved in making this happen. Do a writeup on the historical aspects of the style... Saison, RIS, IPA, etc.

Show people that it just isn't an issue of getting hammered, but there is a whole 'Nother aspect to this. Heck, you're an Accounting major, use this as a model for running some calcs.

And as for the suggestion to involve Engineering students... Sweet Merciful Mother of God, be happy that your school doesn't have an Engineering program. If your Biology dept is anything like ours, you have enough to handle.

Edit: as for the grammar Nazi, he's got 3,000 posts, how about you print them all out and have your favorite English professor correct them.
 
Congrats on seeing this through! I also work at a university and I know the challenges of dealing with upper admin types.

I'm very impressed that you were so successful in this. You might think about gifting a few bottles to some of the folks who were involved in making this happen. Do a writeup on the historical aspects of the style... Saison, RIS, IPA, etc.

Show people that it just isn't an issue of getting hammered, but there is a whole 'Nother aspect to this. Heck, you're an Accounting major, use this as a model for running some calcs.

And as for the suggestion to involve Engineering students... Sweet Merciful Mother of God, be happy that your school doesn't have an Engineering program. If your Biology dept is anything like ours, you have enough to handle.

Edit: as for the grammar Nazi, he's got 3,000 posts, how about you print them all out and have your favorite English professor correct them.


Thanks! I appreciate it! I have actually been thinking about giving the ones who helped us out a 6-pack and a club t-shirt once we have them. I just need some time now to make all my ideas happen
 

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