0:00

Andrew Burns joins me this week to discuss

0:02

technical programs in brewing. This is

0:04

Beersmith Podcast number 297. And

0:30

it's late January, 2024. Andrew

0:32

Burns joins me this week to discuss technical

0:34

programs in brewing. Thank

0:37

you to this week's sponsors, Craft

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Beer and Brewing magazine. They invite you to

0:41

join their upcoming brewery workshop, March 24th, the 27th

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in Austin, Texas. This

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one of a kind event brings together

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professional brewers to help you start your own business. This

0:50

is Beersmith Podcast number 297. And

0:53

it's late January, 2024. Andrew

0:55

Burns joins me this week to discuss technical

0:58

programs in brewing. Professional brewers to help you start and

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now let's jump into this week's episode.

2:17

Today on the show, I welcome Andrew Burns. Andrew

2:20

is the brewing instructor at Dakota County

2:22

Technical College, where they have a

2:24

one-year brewing science and production certificate. Before

2:27

becoming an instructor, he worked as

2:29

a shift brewer and a head brewer, and

2:31

he's also been home brewing for nearly 15 years. Andrew,

2:34

it's great to have you on the show for the first time. How are you doing,

2:36

sir? Hi, Brad. I'm doing well and

2:38

happy to be here. Awesome.

2:41

Are you, how are things up there? Now,

2:44

tell me where you are because Dakota College, somebody

2:46

might think it's actually in Dakota. Right,

2:48

yeah. One of the Dakotas. Dakota

2:50

County is one of the counties

2:53

right by Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota.

2:56

So I'm here in Minnesota. I live

2:59

in Minneapolis and teach right here in the

3:01

metro area. Awesome.

3:05

And can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

3:07

Did you start, I guess you started home brewing first

3:09

or did you start writing to pro brewing? Yeah,

3:11

no, that's right. I home brewed for

3:14

many years as a hobby before making

3:16

the transition into professional brewing. I

3:19

started home brewing, you

3:21

know, when I was 21 years old in

3:23

college, living with some friends and we decided to

3:25

do it together as a hobby. And that

3:28

was when I was pursuing my first

3:31

career as a professional musician. So I

3:33

went to school for music and

3:37

became a touring musician and kind of did

3:39

that for a little while, all the while

3:41

home brewing as a hobby. And

3:44

right about the

3:46

2014, I decided

3:48

to transition out of touring and

3:50

playing professionally and try to pursue

3:53

beer as my

3:55

full time job. And that's when I

3:58

got some education and tried to make it. and

4:00

successfully made the leap from home brewer to pro

4:02

brewer. Cool. And where's your work

4:04

the first time? You said I think you started as a ship

4:07

brewer, right? Well, you know,

4:09

I've had a, again, sort of a

4:11

roundabout experience. My first job as a

4:13

professional brewer was actually as a head

4:15

brewer for a really small brew pub.

4:18

So it was a startup brewery in southern

4:20

Minnesota called Jaffa Brewing. And

4:23

I was the head brewer in as much as I

4:25

was the lone brewer. You know, a lot of these

4:27

small shops, you have one person running all

4:29

of the beer making operations from brewing to cleaning the

4:32

floors to kegging to serving the beer in the taproom.

4:34

So I did a little bit of all of that.

4:36

So you were janitor and head of operations, huh? And

4:39

IT department and HR. Yeah.

4:43

And then after doing that,

4:45

I wanted to get some experience at

4:47

a larger production facility. And so that's

4:50

when I went again in Minneapolis to

4:52

prize brewing. That's P-R-Y-E-S.

4:55

And it's sort of a mid-sized production brewery with

4:58

a really big taproom. You

5:00

know, and that's where we had shifts brewing. And I

5:02

started as part of the team there as a ship

5:05

brewer, you know, rotating through different stations

5:07

and different positions and then wound up

5:09

managing that breweries operation. So by the

5:11

end of my time with prize, I

5:13

was managing and training our team of

5:15

brewers. Wow. That's cool.

5:17

How big was that? How many people, how many

5:19

brewers, for example? With when I

5:22

left, we had six full-time brewers and then

5:24

me managing them as the seventh. So that

5:26

is a pretty big operation then, right? How

5:28

many barrels? It

5:31

was right around 10,000 barrels a year. That's

5:33

a big operation. Yeah. That's

5:36

awesome. And let's see,

5:39

you worked as a shift and head brewer.

5:41

What made you decide to dive into brewing

5:43

education now? Well, you

5:45

know, it's a funny story. I

5:48

think it took me a very long time to realize that

5:50

this was sort of the perfect position for me. I've

5:52

always loved teaching. Back when I

5:55

was a musician, I would teach private lessons. And

5:57

so I had a little bit of an education

5:59

background just from. from doing that. And

6:02

even working in beer, I maintained

6:04

a small roster of students for a few

6:06

years and then wound up

6:10

managing a team of brewers. And once again,

6:12

managing them being responsible for

6:15

the operations of the brewery. But a

6:17

lot of that was training, onboarding new

6:19

employees or training our existing employees and

6:21

new processes, new pieces of

6:24

equipment. And I kind of found that

6:27

that was the part I really loved the

6:29

most was sharing knowledge, teaching, and

6:32

even as not officially as a teacher, but

6:34

the times when I was teaching were sort

6:37

of the most fulfilling. And

6:40

yeah, so I just got lucky that this position,

6:43

opened up at the technical college where

6:45

they have a brewing program. And

6:47

I just felt I was really well positioned to

6:50

take my industry experience, sort of what I

6:53

knew from process and norms and

6:55

best practices of working at scale

6:58

and really pursuing my passion for teaching that

7:00

I had all along that took me a

7:03

really long time to figure out I should

7:05

pursue. Well, that's

7:07

great. So tell us

7:09

a little bit about Dakota County Tech. We were

7:11

talking, I think before the show, you mentioned, it

7:13

was sort of a community college level program, right?

7:16

Yes, so DCTC is a one in

7:18

two year technical college, you

7:22

know, like a one in two year technical

7:24

college, you know, near Minneapolis.

7:28

And the

7:30

brewing program has been around for

7:33

several years and it's kind

7:35

of unique amongst brewing programs. We

7:38

have a one year or one school

7:41

year program that's designed for people who

7:43

want to learn more about beer, learn

7:45

more about beer making and brewing, maybe

7:48

probably work in the industry, if

7:51

not initially, maybe one day. So

7:53

that could be just people who want to have a

7:55

job in a brewery, you

7:57

know, work as a brewer. or

8:00

some other production-focused job, or maybe run a

8:02

brewer. Maybe they see themselves as a head

8:04

brewer someday, or maybe even an owner. There's

8:09

a fair amount of my students

8:11

who are experienced home brewers, and

8:13

they want to, they

8:15

kind of want to find out what they don't know

8:17

about the industry so that they can be prepared to

8:21

make a career change. That's a common story

8:23

we hear in brewing, is it's often not

8:26

someone's first career, it's often a

8:29

career change, just like it was for me, my

8:31

first career was a musician, and I wound up

8:33

in brewing as sort of following a passion there.

8:36

So it's a one-year program, and

8:38

starting this upcoming school year,

8:41

so starting in August for

8:43

the fall semester, we'll actually have

8:45

two separate programs that are essentially

8:47

the same curriculum, but

8:50

maybe serve two different needs. We've got our

8:52

flagship one-year program, which is in-person

8:55

here on campus. We actually brew

8:57

on-site, we've got some sort of

9:01

really nice pilot brewing systems and

9:03

Conical for Mentors to sort of

9:05

emulate the commercial brewing process right here

9:07

on campus, and so as part of the

9:09

curriculum, it's hands-on learning, and

9:12

that happens here on campus, like

9:14

I said, it's one school year, and

9:16

then we'll be launching an online-only

9:18

program, so hopefully extend the reach

9:20

to people who are interested in

9:22

brewing education, but maybe can't get

9:24

here every week for their in-class

9:26

instruction. They could do the

9:29

same curriculum, same concepts, but just all

9:31

online, so there'll be

9:33

a 100% online option launching this

9:35

fall. So when you say

9:37

it's a certificate program, I assume it's not an

9:39

associate's degree, right? Yes, that's right.

9:41

Why your certificate? Right, it's

9:43

a one-year certificate, it's not an associate's degree,

9:45

it doesn't require any gen eds or extra

9:48

college classes or liberal arts or anything like

9:50

that. So you just focused on brewing for

9:52

the year, and I think I read somewhere,

9:54

it was on the weekends too for people

9:56

that are local. Yeah, that's

9:58

right, so for people here in... Minnesota,

10:01

we expect that our typical student probably

10:03

has a day job. In fact, some

10:05

of them are working in breweries already,

10:07

or they sort of quit their day

10:09

job, go get a job as a

10:11

packaging tech at a brewery and sign

10:13

up for this program sort of all at

10:15

once. But the

10:17

idea is we run it all on Saturdays.

10:21

You know, the program is aimed at

10:23

adults, you know, you have to be 21

10:25

to even enroll in the program.

10:27

So nobody's coming straight out of high school and

10:29

going into this type of program.

10:31

So we expect you to have a, you

10:34

know, probably have a day job. So we're not going to

10:36

try to interfere with that too much. We

10:38

run all of the in person classes

10:40

on Saturdays. That

10:43

must be that's pretty convenient then if you're if

10:45

you're a full time job or whatever regular job,

10:47

right? Oh, right. Yeah, I mean, that's

10:49

yeah, that's the goal. Yeah.

10:52

Well, you mentioned you were a long time home

10:54

brewer. Let's say somebody was a also a reasonably

10:56

good home brewer looking to go pro. What

10:59

kind of advantage would they get from from signing up

11:01

for a program like yours? Well,

11:03

um, I think there's a ton

11:05

that I'm a little bit biased, obviously,

11:08

due to my position, but also this was the path

11:10

I took when I wanted

11:12

to make that leap from home brewer to pro brewer. I

11:16

went to Siebel Institute

11:18

in Chicago. Yeah. And it's time. The only

11:20

way to really do that was to actually

11:23

sort of quit a job and started a new

11:25

job so that I had a bank

11:28

of time where I could just leave

11:30

and go for several weeks and live

11:32

in Chicago and take these courses, nine

11:34

to five, Monday to Friday. It was

11:36

sort of a very compact, intense time

11:39

frame. But what it does

11:41

do is it I think it

11:43

introduces you to a lot of really, really

11:45

important concepts that you're going to need

11:48

as a professional brewer that might not be relevant

11:50

to home brewers. One of the

11:52

things I love about home brewing is

11:54

that the home brewing community has really adapted

11:56

the brewing process to suit the needs

11:58

of someone who's bringing it. home someone's

12:00

brewing in small scales compared to brewery

12:02

sized vessels. You

12:05

know maybe you're chasing fun

12:08

and flavor over repeatability and

12:10

quality and consistency or cost

12:14

and so a lot of the things that home

12:16

brewers do which I think are fantastic I think

12:18

it's the way that people should be

12:20

brewing at home aren't exactly the way we do

12:22

it at scale in the industry. I had to

12:25

unlearn or relearn a lot of habits in

12:29

particular just the way we control a

12:31

process how rigorous we are in terms

12:33

of testing and measuring and verifying is

12:36

quite a bit different at the professional scale.

12:38

There's also just things that aren't

12:41

feasible at a big scale

12:43

so we have to find alternative ways to deal

12:45

with them. And

12:48

so what I think

12:50

the formal education offers is some

12:52

sort of scientific grounding so you

12:54

understand exactly what's happening

12:56

in the brewing process and

12:58

can make adjustments to suit

13:00

your needs. And then an

13:03

overview of what are best practices

13:05

what our industry norms not every

13:07

brewery operates the same way and

13:10

so I view one of

13:12

the goals of education as presenting you

13:14

with a variety of options

13:17

and the variety of solutions that brewers have found

13:19

over the years and so you have the tools

13:21

to pick the one that matches your situation. You

13:24

know the way a

13:27

small brew pub that only sells directly

13:29

into their taproom develops

13:31

a recipe is probably quite a bit different

13:33

than the way a large-scale production facility that

13:35

brews multiple times a day and primarily sells

13:37

packaged product. It's just gonna settle

13:39

things. Yeah

13:42

so let's say I'm the opposite let's say I'm

13:44

a young person who maybe isn't in the home

13:46

brewing yet but it would like to work at

13:48

a commercial brewery someday. What

13:51

kind of experience would I get if I was

13:53

starting from scratch? Well

13:55

you know one of the things I like about

13:58

the beer industry is an education

14:00

is it required? It's

14:03

still an industry where you can sort

14:05

of begin with zero experience, find

14:07

a brewery usually in

14:10

packaging, be a department

14:12

that often hires people with sort of

14:15

no formal experience, and you can

14:17

just work your way up. You can sort of climb the

14:19

ladder. You can learn on the job,

14:22

but the reality of that is

14:24

that it's gonna take a long

14:26

time. Oftentimes breweries are

14:29

really busy. They're staffed just well

14:31

enough to produce

14:33

the amount of products that they need

14:35

to be producing, and there's not a

14:37

ton of time for shadowing and apprenticeship

14:39

or on-the-job training. I mean, that's

14:41

there and that happens, and that's sort of the traditional

14:43

path that a lot of today's head brewers took to

14:46

get to where they are, but more

14:48

and more what we're seeing is that

14:51

brewing education is a way to sort

14:53

of accelerate that time path. Instead of

14:55

spending maybe five years working in packaging

14:57

and working in the cellar and sort

14:59

of slowly gaining the knowledge and the

15:01

trust of a head brewer before you're

15:03

allowed to sort of transition to a

15:05

brewing role and work in the hot

15:07

side of the process, an

15:10

educational program like this could take just

15:12

one year and you're sort of ready

15:15

to make that leap. So

15:17

if you are a young person who is

15:20

21 and wants to work in

15:22

breweries, which I

15:25

encourage, I think it's a good career path

15:27

and maybe not a traditional career path that

15:29

many people are aware of, I

15:33

think the best way to do it is to just sort

15:35

of jump in, go

15:37

apply for those entry-level positions, just get in

15:39

and get there, get doing and working, and

15:42

at the same time if you can find

15:44

a way to squeeze education in, that's why

15:46

our program is scheduled the way it is.

15:49

You can really accelerate that and

15:51

move into more of the sort of

15:55

career type brewing positions

15:57

a lot faster. Well,

16:01

what kind of topics do you cover in

16:03

your technical brewing program? Well,

16:06

I kind of view it as sort

16:09

of four main areas of what we're

16:11

trying to do. So one of

16:13

the big ones is the science that's related to

16:15

brewing. So that is science

16:18

related to yeast and yeast health and

16:20

yeast fermentation, sort of the life cycle

16:22

of a yeast cell, so a lot

16:24

of biology involved with that. Science

16:28

like the chemistry in water, the

16:31

chemistry in the mash, sort of

16:33

the relationship between water

16:36

chemistry and mashing and what's happening

16:38

there with alkalinity and pH, as

16:41

well as looking at the enzymes that happen in the mash, sort

16:43

of all of that. And

16:46

then sort of the science of

16:48

what's happening in fermentation, aging, oxidization,

16:50

carbonation, what does volumes of

16:52

CO2 mean, how do we measure it. And

16:55

then there's the sort of the industry

16:58

norm practical knowledge, which is, okay,

17:00

so you've learned the science, the

17:02

foundation. Now this is what it

17:05

actually looks like. This is what it feels like. This

17:09

is what the life of a brewer with

17:11

the job of this other person actually entails.

17:15

Then we have the hands-on experience, which

17:19

in our case on campus, we have our brewing lab

17:21

where we have our pilot systems. And

17:23

then the fourth leg is the internship experience

17:25

or the industry experience. So as part of

17:27

the certificate, everyone who goes to our program

17:29

does an internship. So they go work at

17:31

a brewery that's local to them and

17:35

it can be a paid internship or an unpaid

17:37

internship. It really depends on the needs of the

17:39

brewery and the needs of the student. And

17:42

then they sort of bring all

17:44

that learning together, actually put

17:47

the boots on, get their hands dirty and see what

17:49

it's like to work in a production facility. Well,

17:52

that's really cool. Tell us a little more about

17:54

that hands-on program. So I'm kind of interested, are

17:57

you working at a craft brewery, I assume, probably. Yeah,

18:00

so for the most part, that's

18:02

the type of breweries, you know,

18:05

around where we are in Minneapolis

18:08

and the types of

18:10

breweries that are often willing to host and

18:12

want to host interns are small

18:15

craft breweries. Students

18:17

really do have the freedom to pursue

18:20

an internship with any brewery

18:23

that they are interested in. If, you know, I

18:26

encourage students to make those real

18:28

life relationships and to do, you know, go out

18:30

there, go talk to the head brewer or an

18:32

owner and say, hey, I'm in this program. I'd

18:34

like to do an internship here. What would that

18:36

look like? Could we make it happen? And so

18:38

one of the cool things is that students often

18:40

intern at breweries that they're a fan of. And

18:44

that's kind of exciting for everyone involved. A

18:46

lot of craft breweries, just

18:51

due to the numbers, you know, there's

18:53

a small number of production facilities that

18:55

employ a small number of brewers compared

18:58

to a large number of craft breweries.

19:00

Even if they're not making as many

19:02

barrels of beer, they employ a lot more

19:04

brewers, have a lot more room for interns

19:06

to come in. And honestly, that is the

19:08

type of students that I'm seeing is almost

19:10

entirely people who are interested in craft beer.

19:12

They like their small local breweries. They want

19:14

to see more of them in the world.

19:16

They want to work in them. They have

19:18

a passion for quality products. They want to

19:20

learn what goes into it. And so it's

19:22

just a natural fit to land at those

19:25

internships. Awesome.

19:28

Well, I want to go back and step up, walk through the

19:30

other three topics you talked about. The first one was science.

19:32

So can you talk a little bit, maybe a little more

19:34

in depth on what kind of science, you

19:36

know, you have to have a lot of math background. Is there

19:38

a lot of microbiology you got to understand

19:40

to be able to do this? So

19:44

you don't need a lot of math.

19:46

You don't need a heavy science background.

19:48

But if you do have those skills,

19:50

there are some really exciting careers in

19:53

beer that would pair really well with

19:55

the type of certificate we're offering. So,

19:58

you know, one of the career path

20:00

is if you have a background in science,

20:02

maybe you have an undergraduate degree in chemistry

20:05

or biology and you go, you know what,

20:07

I want to go work in beer and

20:09

breweries bring my science background

20:11

into it. A lot of breweries

20:14

have lab positions, quality positions, you

20:16

know, where a science background is really important and

20:19

in that regard I view my curriculum

20:21

that we're offering here at DCTC as

20:23

sort of, you probably

20:25

know more about biology and about

20:27

chemistries and a typical brewer, whatever

20:29

need to know. So here's the

20:32

beer specific knowledge that will be

20:34

really valuable for you. But

20:36

for the typical brewer, you

20:39

know, it's much more of

20:41

a conceptual understanding of what's

20:43

happening along with

20:46

a practical approach. So here is the

20:49

life cycle of a yeast cell, here

20:51

is how they're going to take in

20:54

sugar, they're going to produce these byproducts,

20:56

here's where acetaldehyde comes from, here's where

20:58

diacetyl comes from, here is where how

21:00

these, you know, flavorful molecules interact, here's

21:03

why these things are important and

21:05

now what does that look like in practice?

21:07

Well if you're in a brewery, these are

21:09

probably the processes you're going to be following

21:12

and so if you have that sort of

21:14

theoretical underpinning then

21:16

we can then move from there into

21:19

the practical approach and say, now that

21:21

you know all that, this is why we

21:23

do things this way as opposed to some

21:25

other way. You know and the same thing

21:27

with a numbers perspective, you know, you can

21:30

absolutely calculate out any

21:32

aspect of a beer recipe by

21:34

hand and it's a good exercise to

21:37

sort of understand how every

21:39

input could affect the output

21:43

of your beer. But at the end of the day, I tell my students,

21:46

software is probably going to be where you're going to

21:48

live. You're very unlikely

21:50

to be calculating recipes by hand

21:52

anymore. I don't know any brewers

21:54

who do that. I

21:57

know a few old-school ones but there are many. I

22:00

mean, once you get to know your system

22:02

well enough, you could probably write a recipe

22:04

by hand and say, I don't

22:06

know what the gravity exactly is gonna be. I don't know what

22:08

the color is gonna be, but I know this is gonna be

22:10

about right. And I don't know the specific numbers, but we could

22:12

brew it and it'll taste really good. But

22:15

when it comes to actually doing

22:17

calculations with water chemistry or making

22:19

adjustments to IBU based on hop

22:21

additions or just formulating a recipe

22:23

in the first place, we

22:26

work in software. And I train the

22:28

students. I give them a little

22:30

tutorial on how to use a beer Smith. I

22:32

encourage them to use beer Smith to

22:35

sort of calculate up their recipes.

22:37

And we use those calculators. Because

22:39

again, that's the practical approach where

22:41

practicality meets the science. It's important to

22:44

know why different water

22:47

ions are important. It's

22:49

important to know what impacts they're gonna have on

22:51

the flavor of the beer and the chemistry involved

22:53

with the mash. But it's probably

22:55

not important to know exactly how many parts

22:57

per million you get per gram of this

22:59

versus per gram of that. We can let

23:01

computers handle that. We don't

23:04

have to calculate the molar mass

23:06

and all that other stuff. Right,

23:08

it's just not, that's the practicality

23:10

aspect. That's that part of the curriculum

23:13

that says, okay, this is the theory, but what is

23:15

it actually, how do we actually put it into practice?

23:17

You're in a brewery, you're by yourself. You need to

23:19

figure it out. What are you gonna do? What tools

23:21

are you gonna reach for? Well,

23:23

I wanted to dive into that section next. So let's

23:25

talk about the practical. I assume this is where we

23:27

get into the real differences between home brewing and pro

23:30

brewing, for example, right? Well, yeah,

23:32

I mean, yeah. So

23:35

it's a lot of, you

23:38

know, we talk a lot about standard operating

23:40

procedures, SOPs, sort of why we do things

23:42

in the order we do them in. We

23:46

do address the differences between the home brewing

23:49

and pro brewing. Here on campus,

23:51

we have these 10

23:53

gallon pilot systems.

23:56

So about the home brew size, right? About

23:58

the home brew size. a really,

24:00

really nice homebrew setup or

24:03

a very, very small commercial setup, depending on how

24:05

you look at it, right? There's a little bit

24:07

of temperature control. There,

24:09

you know, it's a

24:11

continuous barging. You can, there's

24:14

a, we use an actual plate

24:16

heat exchanger to knock out the

24:19

work into conical fermenters. We have

24:21

glycol to chill the conical fermenters.

24:24

And so all of that feels very

24:26

much like commercial brewing. It's just at

24:28

the very small scale. Yeah.

24:30

Yeah. But you know,

24:32

when we talk about our processes, you know, how do

24:34

we clean up what chemicals are

24:36

using? What's the process for cleaning? We look

24:39

at that from the commercial brewing perspective. So

24:41

we're using things like caustic as opposed to,

24:43

you know, maybe PBW, which is a down

24:45

caustic cleaner. Sure. We're using

24:48

pumps and spray balls and

24:51

best practices when it comes to cleaning

24:53

our cold side equipment. It's still small,

24:55

which is great. It's low risk. It's

24:57

much more manageable and students get more

24:59

hands on time in the, in the

25:01

lab. You know, instead of having, say,

25:03

you could imagine a world where we

25:05

ran a one barrel or a three

25:08

barrel brewery or something like that. And we

25:10

just had the one brew house. But instead

25:12

we have six pilot systems, which means that

25:15

students get a lot

25:17

more time on an individual basis on the

25:19

systems and they get to practice brewing

25:21

recipes. They want to develop, they want to brew

25:24

and, and

25:27

getting that hands on time, which

25:29

then sets them up to

25:31

go into an internship and say, Oh,

25:33

I've recognized doing this. Of course, I did it on a

25:35

small scale. And now this one looks like it's a big

25:37

scale, but Oh, I recognize it. And

25:40

do you dive into like some of the new, you

25:42

know, new pro brewing craft, craft

25:44

techniques, you know, there's a lot of people

25:46

making hazy IPAs and other things using specific

25:48

techniques, for example. Yeah, we do

25:51

talk about that. And I do try

25:53

to stay current on those, on

25:56

those not fads,

25:58

but sort of new. adaptations, we

26:00

talk about it, we address it. I mean, you

26:02

brought up hazy IPAs, I think that's a fantastic

26:05

example. You know, a lot

26:07

of books that we read from or

26:09

for reading even slightly older sources, hazy

26:12

IPAs wasn't even a category of a

26:15

beer style, much less where their best

26:17

practices are sort of

26:19

this general knowledge on how to brew this

26:21

type of beer. So that's

26:24

a great example of

26:26

having to keep current. I have the

26:28

advantage of only recently leaving industry, so I haven't

26:30

been out of the game for very long and

26:33

I still try to keep current with that.

26:35

So yeah, you know,

26:37

we talk about, you know, conveyees,

26:39

we talk about seltzer

26:42

brewing, which is gigantic in the industry

26:44

right now. We talk about hazy IPAs,

26:46

you know, the different approaches, how you,

26:49

you know, how we would approach that

26:51

style of brewing and even into

26:53

equipment. Why would you choose this style

26:55

of brew house over another style of

26:57

brew house? Well, maybe this style of

27:00

brew house is really good for doing

27:02

more traditional styles with stepmashes, more of a German

27:04

tradition, whereas the styles are set up to brew

27:06

hazy IPAs. If that's what you're going to be

27:09

brewing, then that's sort of the equipment

27:11

you want in your dream brewing, right? Well,

27:15

you've been a, you've been a home brewer, you've been a shift

27:17

brewer and you've been a head brewer. What

27:19

are the different jobs like? Well,

27:23

you know, as a shift

27:27

brewer is

27:29

a lot of

27:31

what you're doing as a shift brewer is really

27:33

refining your workflow and refining your process. You

27:35

aren't generally choosing what gets brewed. You might

27:38

have one or two beers a year where

27:40

you get to write the recipe and have

27:42

some input. But for the most part, you're

27:44

brewing what you are being told to brew

27:46

and you are, and

27:49

your main thing is you're

27:51

following an SOP. So you

27:53

are, you intimately know

27:55

your system and your processes

27:58

and in any sort of long-term, larger scale production facility,

28:00

the shift brewers are probably the ones who know

28:03

all of the quirks of

28:05

the brew house, know exactly what

28:07

warning signs to look for if they're getting

28:10

a stuck runoff or know exactly how to

28:12

set a certain valve to get it to

28:14

work exactly perfectly. And so

28:16

if that, you know, it was really a

28:18

refinement of the process. And once you get

28:20

good at it, it's almost then you could

28:22

sort of brew, you know

28:24

exactly what's going to happen next. And so

28:26

you can sort of plan out your day,

28:28

set yourself up for success and sort of

28:30

everything goes exactly like clockwork. That

28:32

doesn't always happen. I mean, one of the big,

28:35

one of the differences between homebrew and pro brewing

28:37

is consistency, right? I mean, you're brewing the same

28:39

beer in many cases over and over again and

28:41

you want every batch to be exactly the same,

28:43

right? I mean, that's exactly right. I mean, not

28:45

even over and over again, maybe even multiple times

28:47

in the same day, right? You

28:50

know, it's pretty common for those sorts

28:52

of facilities to brew two or four

28:54

or sometimes even six batches a day.

28:58

And so oftentimes you're brewing, you know,

29:00

you are juggling multiple batches. That's the

29:02

other, that's sort of the other aspect

29:05

of shift brewing is that you get

29:07

so good at producing a

29:09

beer, at taking the raw ingredients

29:12

and turning them into work that

29:15

you can start to do more than one.

29:17

So you know, if you're working at a,

29:19

if you are a shift brewer, chances are

29:21

it's a production facility that runs multiple times

29:23

a day, which means you've probably

29:25

got one batch of beer that's further along than the

29:27

other and they're all going to go into the same

29:30

tank, but you are managing. Okay. So

29:32

this one is in the Whirlpool step right now.

29:34

Whereas this one, I am louder against barging and

29:36

I'm milling my third one for the day. And

29:39

you're, and you started doing a lot of that

29:41

multitasking and juggling, which requires a really intimate knowledge

29:44

of the process so that that frees up your

29:46

mind to focus on the, on that multitasking aspect

29:48

of it. As

29:50

a head brewer, you know,

29:53

in a small facility, you're often

29:55

the sole brewer. So, you know, if you

29:58

want to write a recipe and then go. execute

30:00

that recipe where it feels very much like home

30:02

brewing, you just get to do it every day.

30:05

That's kind of what a head brewer at a brew

30:07

pub is like with the

30:09

addition of you're also responsible for all

30:11

the clean and you'll probably spend

30:13

three times as much time cleaning all of

30:16

your equipment and cleaning your processes than you

30:18

are actually brewing or much less writing recipes

30:20

and ordering ingredients and that sort of stuff.

30:23

At a larger facility, one thing

30:25

that head brewers often realize is that at a

30:27

certain point they have to become a little bit

30:29

more hands off. You have

30:31

this devotion to quality. It's your

30:33

product. Oftentimes your name is on

30:36

the product and people know that

30:39

this is coming from you but you're not the

30:41

one who's actually on the brew deck brewing it.

30:43

You're not the one in the cellar who's making

30:45

sure that the tank is sanitized before it receives

30:48

the work. You're not responsible for quality over the

30:50

process. So a lot of what being a head

30:52

brewer is at that scale is

30:56

being a manager and a teacher and

30:58

a mentor and you

31:00

have to be involved enough

31:03

with the production process that quality

31:05

is being maintained. But

31:07

far enough removed that people can do their

31:09

jobs, that you're not interfering with the ship

31:12

brewers who like I said often have every

31:14

quirk of the brew house memorized far more than

31:16

the head brewer does because the head brewer is

31:19

more responsible for the big picture,

31:21

for quality from beginning to end, ordering

31:23

ingredients, setting up the schedule for what

31:25

gets brewed when, coming up with new

31:28

seasonals, writing new recipes, promoting the brewery,

31:30

all that other stuff that isn't actually

31:32

brewing. That's what I was wondering. Do

31:34

you cover a lot of the business

31:37

aspects of actually running a small brewery?

31:39

We cover enough of the

31:41

business aspects that we get an idea

31:44

of what it's like, but I am

31:46

not a business person. I'm a process

31:48

person. That's the aspect of the industry

31:50

that I'm an expert in and that's

31:52

really what the program focuses on. It's

31:57

not uncommon for someone who already

32:00

has a business background to

32:02

say I want to own a brewery and they come to

32:04

me and they enroll in the program so

32:07

that they can... Excuse

32:10

me I'm gonna cough here. I'll

32:15

start that sentence again. Yeah

32:20

we we talk about business and

32:23

we talk about the business of the industry

32:25

and what it's like at a surface level

32:27

and enough for you to

32:29

have an okay understanding what's happening but I'm not

32:31

a lawyer, I'm not an expert in beer laws,

32:34

I'm not a business person, I'm not an expert

32:36

in running a business, I'm

32:38

an expert in the process. I mean I know

32:40

there are some programs and courses that are centered

32:42

around opening your own brewery but obviously that becomes

32:45

you know a lot of it's not about brewing

32:47

really. Well that's exactly right

32:49

and so you know

32:51

I've had students who have a business background and

32:53

they decide that they want to open a brewery

32:55

so they come and enroll in the program so

32:57

that they can learn the beer specific aspects

33:00

of the industry to pair with their industry knowledge

33:03

or with their business knowledge. I've also got

33:05

some students who don't have much business knowledge

33:07

again they see themselves as brewery owners or

33:09

head brewers and so they

33:11

take some entrepreneurship and business classes at

33:14

the same time you know you know

33:16

being a community college and a technical

33:18

college like we are we have those

33:20

options and again it's pretty darn affordable

33:23

considering what the cost of college education is and

33:27

so that's another career path. Oftentimes

33:30

for successful breweries the

33:33

business person and the

33:35

head brewer beer person are not

33:37

the same person in that business.

33:40

That is it's

33:42

important for a head brewer to understand the business

33:44

of beer and the business of selling beer but

33:46

at large successful breweries even mid-sized

33:49

breweries that's often two different

33:51

people who wear two different hats and have two different

33:53

specialties. How

33:56

do you compare this program that you went through the Seibel Institute

33:58

how do you compare What do

34:00

they do with that program versus your

34:02

program, for example? Well, you

34:05

know, a

34:07

lot of the curriculum is essentially the same.

34:10

You know, we break it up into similar

34:12

chunks. We talk about an overview

34:15

and then we go into sort of

34:17

hot side work production. We follow that

34:19

up with a second semester

34:21

is more cold side and what

34:23

we call beer production, which into

34:25

packaging and quality control. And

34:28

so we cover the same sort of material

34:30

in the same general order, same type of

34:32

curriculum. Like I said, I went through part

34:35

of that C-Bolt program. The big difference

34:37

there is that their

34:40

program is very condensed in it from a

34:42

time perspective. So it's really well suited for

34:44

someone who's going to take time off work,

34:46

go do it, go do it all at

34:48

once, get it out of the way. So,

34:50

you know, you know, their

34:52

their flagship program in Chicago was six

34:55

weeks in Chicago followed by another six

34:57

weeks in Germany. That's their on the

34:59

job component is with some breweries in

35:01

Germany. And that's how they get the

35:03

on the job experience. What

35:06

we're trying to offer is as a counterpoint

35:09

to that is one

35:12

school year as opposed to short

35:15

number of weeks. So the idea

35:19

is we think it'll fit in the

35:21

working person's schedule. Sure.

35:24

And so we, you

35:26

know, the internship component

35:29

is not doesn't happen in Germany unless you

35:31

want it to happen in Germany. Right. But

35:35

you get to work with a local brewery

35:37

that that maybe interests you if

35:39

you can establish that relationship.

35:41

I have my own industry connection. So

35:43

I do try to set students up

35:46

with breweries that I know want to

35:48

take interns. But most students

35:50

find their own internship. That's right.

35:53

And then, yeah, and so really

35:55

the main

35:58

difference. is

36:02

just the mode of delivery. Yeah, compressed

36:06

program versus more of a traditional

36:08

schedule. But even so, one school

36:10

year, I mean, it comes up to 32 Saturdays. Yeah.

36:14

Or 32 weeks of online

36:17

instruction for the new online,

36:19

which by the way is fully asynchronous.

36:22

So it, you know, it's really you complete. You

36:24

gotta go at your own pace, I guess. Yeah,

36:26

each week's worth of work and readings and assignments

36:28

at the pace that makes sense for you and

36:31

your schedule. As long as you finish by the

36:33

end of the week, then you're caught up and

36:35

we go into the next week. Cool. And so,

36:37

yeah. Well,

36:40

let's talk a little bit about higher level

36:42

brewing degrees, like getting a bachelor's degree, maybe

36:44

from a big name like the University of

36:46

California, Davis. What would a bachelor's

36:48

degree or maybe even a master's degree add in

36:52

terms of brewing education? You

36:54

know, it really depends on what your

36:57

aspirations are in the brewing industry and where

36:59

you want to end up and what part

37:01

of the process really interests you. If

37:04

you are really into

37:06

quality and the lab

37:08

aspect of brewing, if you would want to

37:11

be this type of person who is running

37:13

the microscope and taking samples and making sure

37:15

that this batch is just as good as

37:17

the last batch, there

37:20

can be some real value in having that

37:22

sort of more formal bachelor's level education.

37:26

And there is a place for that in the

37:29

brewing industry. Like I said earlier, I

37:31

mean, many breweries have a lab or

37:33

quality department of some size, even if

37:35

it's just one person. But

37:38

often, as that person has a bachelor's degree

37:41

in a science field, you know,

37:43

biology or chemistry or like zimmergy

37:45

specific, yeast specific bachelor's

37:49

are really, really helpful and really valuable. Yeah,

37:52

I mean, there's a lot of programs now that offer

37:55

bachelor's degrees in brewing and brewing science,

37:57

for example. Right. Around here, again, I'm...

38:00

mostly know the job market in

38:02

Minnesota I

38:06

don't see head brewers being

38:09

more likely to hire someone to just

38:11

work in production as a ship brewer

38:13

or as an assistant brewer or as

38:15

a brewery manager or anything

38:17

like that I don't see them hiring

38:22

someone with a bachelor's degree over somebody

38:24

with some kind of experience That's

38:27

a good chance Which

38:31

is one of the reasons why we view this

38:33

program as a certificate Listen, it's

38:35

about getting you the knowledge and getting you

38:37

the practice and getting you your

38:39

foot in the door so that you

38:41

can accelerate your trip up to that

38:44

level of a job based

38:46

on real world actual brewing experience Which at

38:49

the end of the day, that is really

38:51

the most valuable thing for a brewer to

38:53

have in any capacity is that real experience

38:58

And that is probably, at least for now,

39:00

the way the industry is probably still going

39:02

to always be more valuable than

39:04

a four year degree in that

39:07

aspect Like I said, quality

39:11

lab work, I mean, many large breweries employ

39:13

people with PhDs to manage their yeast program

39:16

And so that's a very viable path

39:18

for someone from academia who wants to

39:20

go to work in industry to

39:23

be involved in beer Chris

39:25

White's PhD obviously, right? Right, exactly White

39:28

Land, yeah And

39:30

so if you're

39:32

super into microbiology and you want to get

39:35

into yeast and yeast health and fermentation and

39:37

quality and all of that, there

39:40

could definitely be some

39:42

real value to that bachelor's degree Or

39:45

a more traditional sort of bachelor's degree

39:47

and a more general biology

39:50

or chemistry focus is often just

39:52

as good because the beer

39:54

people figure, well, we can teach you about beer We

39:56

can teach you about yeast, you can learn about brewing

40:00

If you've got the lab background, that's really

40:02

valuable in that department. Sure. Well,

40:05

let's talk about payback. So a lot of people go into

40:07

debt to go to college these days. What

40:10

kind of return can you expect if you get,

40:12

say, a technical degree or maybe an associate's degree

40:14

from a program like yours in

40:16

terms of salary? Well, so

40:19

first, I want to talk about the cost of

40:22

the program. One of the

40:24

big advantages of where we are in a two-year

40:26

technical college is that the tuition is

40:28

really darn affordable. So

40:32

we're just over $200 per credit

40:35

at DCTC, which when

40:38

you do break it down per credit, that

40:40

means the flagship in-person program is right around

40:42

$5,000 for the full school year.

40:46

Yeah, I bet. And then

40:48

the online-only program has fewer credits because we

40:50

don't have that in-person lab component. We rely

40:52

on the internship for that. So

40:55

the online program is actually fewer credits. It's

40:57

actually under $4,000. So

41:00

right off the bat... So

41:02

you're not going to $200,000 in the debt for college. No.

41:06

This type of certificate is really

41:08

affordable. On top of that,

41:10

residents of Minnesota, you know, we're a

41:13

Minnesota-based college. We're part of

41:15

the Minnesota state system. Residents

41:17

of Minnesota who don't already have a

41:19

bachelor's degree could probably get their schooling

41:21

paid for entirely. Wow. That's the program

41:23

that Minnesota is launching. And so

41:26

that means if you live in Minnesota right now,

41:28

you could probably get free college. Don't already have

41:30

a bachelor's degree. It depends on how much money

41:32

you make. But if you're working in the beer

41:34

industry, I can tell you you're not going to

41:36

be above that threshold. Well,

41:38

that's the other side. How much do you actually make? So

41:41

is it a shift brewer or production brewer? Right.

41:44

And this has been trending upward in recent years, at

41:46

least where I am. So

41:48

to put some real numbers on

41:50

it, in Minnesota,

41:53

or at least in the metro area around Minneapolis,

41:56

St. Paul, which is where I'm most familiar, you

41:58

know, it's a pretty representative city. not

42:00

the most expensive place to live in the country, but

42:02

it's still a major city. It's got a higher cost

42:04

of living than some of the more rural parts of

42:06

the country. Kind of mill the road, kind of average

42:08

in terms of number of breweries and

42:11

opportunities and cost of living and all that.

42:13

So around where I'm at, I

42:15

don't really see, um, full-time

42:18

production staff anywhere making less than $20

42:20

an hour. Um,

42:24

and anyone who's got Brewer

42:26

in their title, it's probably making 22 or

42:29

more dollars an hour. Mm-hmm. And

42:33

you can look at salary ranges for

42:35

head brewers or, um, sort

42:38

of more, uh, higher up positions

42:40

in, in larger breweries being anywhere from 60

42:42

to a hundred thousand dollars a

42:44

year. Sure. Um, again, this is just

42:46

me. I don't have any data to back this up.

42:48

This is just sort of me taking the pulse of,

42:51

of, of the industry around me. Uh,

42:54

so, uh, I mean, it is

42:56

not the most high paid job in the world.

42:58

I mean, we all know that, um, but it

43:00

is at least around here, still a

43:03

living wage and, and there is room for growth.

43:05

And if you begin in the industry, you can

43:07

sort of right at the entry level, be supporting

43:09

yourself pretty decently. And that there is, there is

43:11

room to grow into, um, the

43:14

sort of full-time salary positions that, I

43:16

mean, that's what I was, you

43:19

know, living on for, for 10 years

43:21

before, before coming into education. I mean, I actually

43:23

took a pay cut to come into college

43:25

education. So that's sort of where we're at

43:28

in terms of the, in terms of industry.

43:31

Um, and compared to, like I

43:33

said, I don't know the cost of all the

43:35

other programs. I know what I paid, um, or

43:37

what the cost was of me to go to Siebel. It was

43:40

quite a bit higher. And, um,

43:42

compared to like a two year or

43:44

four year education. Uh,

43:46

I mean, the, the, the all in

43:48

bill for this certificate is, is pretty

43:50

darn affordable and it does allow you

43:52

to go. Directly from

43:55

this certificate into the

43:57

workforce in a brewery. I mean, even

44:00

a bachelor's degree at a regular four-year

44:03

college, a state school is what, over 20

44:05

grand now I think, right? I

44:08

mean, per year, I'm talking about. For a

44:10

year, right, yeah, exactly. So,

44:15

would there be much, you know, would you see a

44:17

much higher salary perhaps with a bachelor or master's degree?

44:19

I guess not as a

44:21

production brewer probably. No, probably not as a production

44:23

brewer, no. If you want to go

44:25

straight to a manager role or work

44:28

into a quality department, there's probably more

44:30

than 20 to 23 bucks an hour

44:33

in those departments, right? Sort of right with

44:35

a bachelor's. But

44:38

in production, I mean, not really. I mean,

44:40

we're an industry that is partially

44:43

based on passion. People

44:45

have a passion for beer, they like making the

44:47

product. And so, there is

44:49

usually someone

44:51

who is willing to do that job

44:54

for around that 20 to 20 some

44:57

dollars an hour mark. So, a

45:00

bachelor's degree doesn't necessarily set yourself ahead in

45:03

production. It might set yourself ahead if you

45:05

get that real production experience and then

45:07

want to move into a management

45:09

role like what I was doing. Yeah, or

45:11

maybe an entrepreneurial thing where you're actually interested

45:13

in opening your own business perhaps. Yeah,

45:16

exactly. Of course, that has its own costs. Well,

45:20

are there any aspects of the program that we didn't

45:22

cover already? Um,

45:25

you know, gosh, I don't think so. No,

45:28

I think we've really covered it. Oh, good.

45:30

You know, other than maybe the URL where

45:32

people can go to learn more. Yeah, sure.

45:34

Please, yeah, share. Where can people learn more?

45:37

I should have asked that. So, it

45:39

is Dakota County Technical College.

45:41

So, those letters are dctc.edu

45:44

slash brew. That's

45:48

B-R-E-W. I'll say

45:50

it again. dctc.edu/brew.

45:53

And that'll have all the information about the current

45:55

program and a little note there

45:57

that we are launching the new online program.

46:00

upcoming this year. Great. I'll

46:02

make sure if you send it a link I'd

46:04

be happy to put it on the show notes

46:06

for people can find out. beersmith.com/blog is where the

46:08

shows are listed and the show notes are for

46:10

all the episodes. Well awesome

46:13

Andrew I just want to get your closing thoughts now.

46:17

Well you know I have

46:20

been so focused on you

46:23

know the education aspect of

46:25

brewing and you know

46:27

recognizing that there is a need for skilled

46:30

qualified brewers in the industry.

46:34

That I am just

46:36

you know you might hear a lot

46:38

of mixed messages

46:40

about making

46:44

the transition from home brewing into pro

46:46

brewing or people

46:49

in the industry saying why would you ever

46:51

want to become a brewer and I can

46:53

tell you that I made that decision and

46:55

I enjoyed it. I

46:57

thought it was a wonderful decision. I wouldn't

47:00

have left the brewing industry for a

47:03

different job unless it was something like

47:05

what I'm doing and so I

47:08

guess my closing thoughts are that

47:13

it's still a good industry

47:15

to work in if you're passionate about

47:17

beer. There are good jobs out there

47:19

and that education

47:21

is a part

47:23

of the equation that hasn't traditionally been part

47:26

of brewing. You know it's often been an

47:28

on-the-job apprenticeship type type

47:30

industry but I see

47:33

that changing and I think that

47:36

if you're the type of person who is

47:39

contemplating that sort of a career change or

47:41

contemplating it in this industry that a low-risk

47:43

way to do it is to start with

47:45

education and find out is this you know

47:47

before you quit your day job is this

47:49

really for me. You know one of the

47:52

best ways to do it is with not

47:54

just not just this program here at DCTC

47:56

but any of the multiple sort of non-degree

47:58

certificate based just what

48:00

you need to learn type programs are

48:02

really a wonderful way to explore

48:04

if this if this industry is right for you because I

48:07

think it is right for a lot of people.

48:10

Awesome Andrew well really appreciate you coming on the show

48:13

today thank you so much for being here. Yeah

48:15

thanks for having me. My

48:17

guest today was Andrew Burns he's

48:19

instructor at Dakota County Technical College

48:22

and he's also a brewer. Andrew

48:24

thank you again really appreciate it. Thanks

48:27

a lot. A big

48:29

thank you to Andrew Burns for joining me this week.

48:32

Thanks also to our sponsors, Craft Beer

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And finally to remind her to click

49:51

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49:53

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50:02

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