Brewing Education: So I have an idea...

[Pygon]

So I have an idea that I would like to share and, hopefully, get feedback from you fine people (you miscreants can share too). Feel free to skip ahead.

Intro of sorts:

For quite some time I've been interested in brewing, obviously, and have a few brews under my belt. By no means could I be considered an experienced brewer.

What I am is a technology and information guy. I love my job of building websites and programs, and I also love to listen to and read about brewing, how to brew, what ingredients are like, complex brewing systems, history, yeast propagation, and just about any other brew-related information. One day, I'd like to start a brewery (and I'm pretty sure I already have a willing financial investor or two in a brew-pub in the future) but I constantly feel like I need two things: better education and experience.

Experience is obviously a factor of time and practice, so that brings me to my idea: Education.

For those who wanted to skip ahead:

There are a couple primary problems I find with trying to educate myself on brewing:

1) Information is scattered, unstructured, partial or simply lacking a way to easily get more in-depth information on subjects. Don't get me wrong, the information is probably out there, but often it's not very easy to find or navigate. Knowing that adding a teaspoon of X makes my beer taste better is great, but knowing WHY it has that effect is just as important to me, and I suspect for others as well.

2) A true "education" in brewing usually costs money and likely requires an extended stay or move to another region of your country. Sometimes these courses even require that you already have a degree in something like Microbiology or Chemistry.

So, in following with the awesome projects of MIT OpenCourseWare and the Khan Academy, the goals of which are to share knowledge with the world without cost, my idea is to create a similar project with the goal of sharing brewing knowledge.

The goal is not to stop people from buying books, using wikis or visiting other websites -- the goal is to centralize information and provide references/links to more detailed sources on a topic; to create a central Brewing repository of information and a "course" that seeks to teach people like me (and maybe you) in a more targeted and educational fashion.

I don't want people to be taught "Chemistry", but to be able to learn the relevant chemistry necessary to be a better, even professional, brewer. The same goes for microbiology, physics, mechanical engineer, history, culinary arts and so on.

To me, the question isn't whether this could be a good idea, but whether people would be interested in both helping and learning, sharing and growing.

Hey, I can take criticism, so if you think I'm crazy, it's unnecessary or even stupid, feel free to let me know. Otherwise, I'd love to know how interested others would be in this (both in the learning and helping to create/expand upon it).

 

[TomStew]

More brewing knowledge sounds awesome to me. How would that work? And how can we help!

 

[gclay]

I think it's a great idea, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I also looked for a beer education and only found stuff in the US, or really expensive. I'm sure there's a lot of folks on here who would willingly help out.

 

[mrbobble]

+1

 

[socalboomer]

Honestly, I would suggest contributing greatly to HBT's wiki - there is already a support community here and a structure for information delivery (the wiki) . . . so rather than build what would essentially be another wheel, why not use the one that exists here?

Perhaps talk with TX about adding a CMS like you're talking about (didn't the MIT project help result in the Sakai CMS? Can't remember) and then incorporate some of the video tutorials that many in this community have already built (and are on YouTube) . . .

Just a thought.

 

[Airborneguy]

Very interesting concept, sort of a repository for brewing information. Just be careful of copyrights of course.

FYI, there are alternative routes for brewing education. I was going to do Seibel's online courses, but found out the VA won't pay for it, so I enrolled in the State University of New York's Empire State College which allows students to design theirnown degree programs. I am currently working on a degree in brewing history and science. Will it say UC Davis on it? No, but the state university of New York is no joke either. It's unfortunate that more colleges don't offer brewing programs.

 

[Pygon]

Honestly, I would suggest contributing greatly to HBT's wiki - there is already a support community here and a structure for information delivery (the wiki) . . . so rather than build what would essentially be another wheel, why not use the one that exists here?

I would normally agree -- however, it would be important to me that the information is listed under a Creative Commons (or similar) license that seeks to keep the information free -- redistribution and attributed use like Wikipedia (and the two projects listed) is a good example.

Also, HBT could choose to contribute the information within their wiki, or add a open license, if they were interested in the goal of the project. Additionally, it wouldn't hurt them to do so; HBT's viewership, I suspect, is entirely based on its community and recipe information, two things that this project wouldn't be. It's like comparing HBT and Wikipedia -- they're completely different and have different goals. Also, HBT's wiki does not have advertising, which means that it is not a loss in revenue.

I wouldn't say, though, that partnerships would be out of the question.

Very interesting concept, sort of a repository for brewing information. Just be careful of copyrights of course.

Copyright is always a concern. Because the gathering of information would be wikipedia style (facts, references), the linking to it from "courses" would create some separation. Also, verbatim copying would be avoided from anywhere not under an open license or without the author's permission.

I think the hope would be that, maybe in the future, author's and scientists may contribute parts of their works as Creative Commons information. This would also allow them to keep the rest of their information's copyright intact, meaning they wouldn't lose any ownership of the rest of their material for sale/etc.

Further, the site would only be required to respond directly to DMCA take-down requests since the repository (wiki) would be maintained by users of the system, while only the courses would be curated by the website. This is the standard method of reducing liability (see wikipedia, google, etc.)

Also, brewwiki, for example, already licenses their content under a GNU Free Documentation License. Unfortunately, GNU can be a bit restrictive with their licenses sometimes. The biggest hurdle may be getting different sources to add a compatible license, whatever it may be.

On a side not, my personal favorite is the "Do whatever the F' you want" license.

Thanks for the input!

 

[genes]

I find the problem is that a lot Odis have day jobs that don't allow seeking education in places across the country.