What degree do I need to brew?

Mustangfreak · 01-07-2011, 08:37 AM

Or to be more specific, what degree would help me get hired by a brewery? Are their any online colleges that offer classes to help me get the degree? I can't go to a physical class for a while, because I don't retire from the USAF till 2024, and I don't plan on leaving any earlier.

Any info would be apriciated.

Also, helo from Al Udeid AB Qatar!

Justibone · 01-07-2011, 11:13 AM

There are graduate degrees in brewing. There are also (expensive) courses that don't offer degrees. From what others on this forum have said in the past, though, experience is far more valuable than education. If you have both, then you're set.

I'd say get involved, maybe even volunteering, at a microbrewery or brewpub if you can. Then you can learn what brewing is really like on a large-scale basis, so you'll have a better idea if it's for you.

Credentials in the beer world don't mean quite as much as experience, FWIW, coming from someone who is not in a "beer career".

Mustangfreak · 01-07-2011, 03:13 PM

So, 17+ years of home brewing alone could mean something to a brewer?

Justibone · 01-07-2011, 03:57 PM

Definitely. However, homebrewing and commercial brewing are, as I understand it, very different animals. Some commercial experience, even as a guy just moving bags and hoses around, would prove that you have actually been in the environment you claim to want to work in and you know what it's like -- but you still want to do it.

Medical schools want applicants to have worked in a hospital, or at least to have "shadowed" a real doctor many times before they apply to med school. A lot of people think that they want to be doctors, but if someone has seen what a doctor actually does and still wants to do it, then they are that much more likely to stick with it and therefore are more worthy of the medical school's limited spaces.

I can't speak to experience in the fermented beverage industry, but to the medical school, I can tell you that is exactly the way it is. Your homebrewing proves that you have the interest and knowledge about beer, so that might help you get your entry-level job, but from there you have to prove yourself on a commercial scale, I'd imagine.

**steinsato** · 01-07-2011, 05:11 PM

Here's an expensive school to go to.
www.siebelinstitute.com

Patirck · 01-07-2011, 05:17 PM

I'm not sure if they offer online courses but UC davis has a brewing science degree.

**Denny330** · 01-08-2011, 03:39 AM

UC Davis offers online courses through the extension program. Listen to the brewing network Sunday session with charlie bamforth before deciding though. The programs and degrees will get you hired as a BMC supervisor, not the right hand man to Greg Koch or Mitch Steele at Stone. Definitely worth a listen. Industry experience and the degree may help.

Nova5 · 01-08-2011, 12:14 PM

Chemistry.