Becoming a brewer.

I have this friend that I was talking to the other day, me and him both brew our own beer. I'm fairly new and so is he. He starts telling me how hes gonna goto Germany and take all of these brewing classes and all this other stuff (that I don't believe). He plans on doing all of that and coming back and working as a brewmaster here in the states.

How hard is that to accomplish and how much would one make working as a brewer/brewmaster.

I'm only asking because I don't believe what he is saying at all.

I don't think you just take some classes and then go get a job as a brewmaster. Besides the class work, you need experience working as a brewer, unless he is talking about opening up his own brewery. How long does it take? From what I can find, classes take anywhere from 3 months to 4 years here in the states. Depending on how deep into the rabbit hole you want to go. Link After all that, looks like he can expect to make $40-50k. Link

BFM in Belgium and Weihenstephan in Germany teach brewing. You can also do brewing classes in the US with the Seibel Institute.

How much you make is going to depend on the brewery you work in but you will not get rich off it.

What? People get paid to do this? LOL I would love to be able to quit my job and brew full time!

I don't think I'd say it's necessary to go to Germany to learn brewing; there are places in the US where you can take brewing classes. Brew Your Own magazine has a blog from a student in a brewing program at, I believe, University of California? I might be wrong on that.

UC Davis has a brewing program.

What your brew buddy is saying is totally achievable. There are entry level brewer positions just like there are entry level accountant and entry level engineer positions available. Getting a degree in brewing is the most straight forward way to work as a brewer. It just requires getting another degree and possibly moving to wherever the brewery that will hire you is located.

There may be a lot of sacrifices in some things but it could all be worth it to make beer all day.

Even after attending a school to learn to brew, he will most likely have to start out as a peon in a brewery and work his way up, unless he has money to start up his own brewpub, in which case he doesn't REALLY need to go to school, he can just practice at home.

Brewing on a large scale is different than brewing at home. Your mistakes can cos tyou much more, and you have things to worry about like logistics and waste material, etc. Lots of things that you don't think about when homebrewing. As a brewmaster, some of that he wouldn't need to worry about, but as a business owner it all affects the bottom line. And I'm not even mentioning the this and thats that are involved in running a brewpub, outside of the brewing process...

+1 for ksbrain and homercidal.

To the OP: What your friend says is totally achievable. Go to school, get qualified, find a job. It's pretty much a linearity. Issues? A million of them if you want to find them but none if you're willing to plow right through the middle. If someone is very determined and willing to make the sacrifices that go along with a job like that it can certainly be done.

I took a different route in that I ended up with a job at my local craft brewer. I started in packaging (putting beer in bottles) and worked my way up with training and a Siebel course to the position of brewers assistant. I was basically doing everything that the head brewer was doing including brewing the beer. Really the only thing I wasn't doing was making any of the major decisions, that was his job. That took me a under a year and half from start to finish.

It CAN be done. Absolutely!