Professional Beer Education
You’ve probably surmised by now that beer brewing is a magical convergence of art and science whose secrets have been passed down from generation to generation, thereby evolving and advancing for millennia. The art part, as in most other creative endeavors, is fairly difficult to learn. A brewer either has it or not. But the art doesn’t really see the light of day without the solid practical and scientific foundation. Fortunately for aspiring and practicing brewers there has been a proliferation of educational programs designed to help beer-making professionals at any level of expertise develop and hone their craft.
One of the best regarded institutions by which many in the industry swear is the Siebel Institute of Technology, based in Chicago. Breweries large and small in about sixty different countries worldwide employ Siebel alumni.
The Siebel story began in 1868 when John Ewald Siebel, a recent émigré from Germany, opened John E. Siebel’s Chemical Laboratory, which evolved into a research facility and school for brewing sciences. By the turn of the twentieth century, the institute was incorporated—it adopted its current name in 1910—and it offered a steady curriculum of brewing courses in both German and English. The earliest classes included a six-month brewer’s course, a two-month post-graduate program, and a three-month engineering module, as well as classes in malting and bottling.
Of course, by that time, the specter of the Eighteenth Amendment loomed, so Siebel proactively diversified to survive. Its revamped curriculum didn’t veer too far afield; educational tracks included baking—they had to do something with all of those grains—refrigeration, engineering, milling, carbonated beverages, and other related disciplines.
When Siebel passed away, it was almost as though he died of a broken heart; the date of his death was December 20, 1919, just shy of a month before Prohibition took effect.
In 1933, when the Twenty-first Amendment erased the scourge of the Eighteenth, the next generation of Siebels resumed the brewing curriculum.
Eighty years after Prohibition’s repeal, Siebel moved to facilities within Chicago’s culinary institute, Kendall College. (It had most recently been operating out of one of Goose Island Brewery’s locations in the city.) Strolling through Siebel’s new digs, it’s impossible not to get overcome with emotion as you absorb a century and a half of brewing history and heritage. Photos of every class from every year adorn the walls of such hallowed halls. Not only do the latter-day class photos feature a veritable who’s who of modern craft brewing, but walk back a couple of decades and you’ll find generations of folks with surnames like Busch and Stroh.
Today’s courses range from the entry-level to the advanced. Those toying with entering the brewing industry or those preparing themselves for the more rigorous education levels are advised to take the Concise Course in Brewing Technology. No prior brewing knowledge is required, but it helps.
Beyond those looking to one day work in an actual brew house, it’s an ideal class for those working on the back-office side of the business—sales, marketing, administration, etc.—who want to expand their knowledge of the practical process.
Those serious about working in a production facility may want to follow that up with the Advanced Brewing Theory program, designed to give participants a detailed understanding of the major technical issues associated with brewing. This one does assume prior knowledge, and students must have completed the Concise Course as a prerequisite or get an online assessment to determine their existing skill set and knowledge base.
Those from outside the Chicagoland area needn’t travel to the Windy City (especially during those treacherous winters). Siebel offers many of its courses online.
Those who want the actual classroom experience but in a much more temperate climate can head to California wine country. The West Coast state has quite the educational infrastructure for the fermentation sciences, given how much money the Golden State has made from grapes. Though wine was California’s claim to fame long before the modern beer industry developed there, it is the state that can claim to be the one where craft brewing started—the Anchor reinvention, New Albion, and Sierra Nevada all happened in Northern California, after all.
And eventually, schools that traditionally catered to vintners began expanding their curricula to capitalize on the brewing renaissance. One of the best-regarded universities to accommodate the new beverage in town is the University of California at Davis. It makes a lot of logical sense, as it’s also gained a reputation as the go-to academy for anyone who has considered working within a five-mile radius of a vineyard.
UC Davis wasn’t just jumping on the bandwagon, either. It has offered courses in brewing science and brewery engineering since the late ’50s, nearly a decade before Fritz Maytag had the insane notion to rescue Anchor from extinction. Most of its brewing curricula are available through the UC Davis Extension, the university’s continuing and professional education arm.
Like Siebel, UC Davis tailors its academic offerings to the full spectrum of experience levels, though its entry-level course is even more concise than the former’s “Concise Course.” The class, titled “Brewing Basics: Going Beyond the Kit,” has been designed with the homebrewer in mind. Its aim is to move those amateur beer makers away from the training wheels that all-inclusive homebrew kits provide and get them to understand the process in a slightly more professional manner. And, since it’s not necessarily for the professional-minded, there’s no time away from one’s day job required. The entire time commitment for “Brewing Basics” is confined to a single weekend, and one gets to work with the equipment of a local brewery.
Closer to the “Concise Course” format, but still a more modest time commitment (five days), is UC Davis’s “Introduction to Practical Brewing.” The university describes the target audience as “advanced homebrewers and early career professional brewers.”
The Davis faculty incinerates the kid gloves for the next level, “Intensive Brewing Science for Practical Brewing.” The five-day course is an ideal follow-up to “Introduction to Practical Brewing.”
If, after making it through the introductory courses, a student still harbors professional aspirations, it’s time to graduate to the university’s expanded programs. The first of those is the intensive “Professional Brewers Certificate Program,” in which students meet six hours a day, five days a week, for a full ten weeks to learn everything from raw materials handling and analysis (grain basics, malting, hops, yeast, etc.) to the mechanics, sterilization practices, and scientific theory of brewing the perfect batch from start to finish. Those who complete the program get the university’s Professional Brewers Certificate.
There are some serious math, biology, chemistry, and physics prerequisites for the certificate program, and transcripts are a must.
For those who really want to take things up a notch, there’s the school’s Master Brewers Program. This one’s an 18-week affair designed to prepare students for the prestigious London Institute of Distilling and Brewing’s Diploma in Brewing Examination (known around the campfire as the IBD DBE). That cumbersome acronym is one of the foremost designations in the world for those working professionally in the global brewing industry.
Passing the Master Brewers Program is one thing. Completing the IBD examination is another matter entirely. It’s a nine-hour (!) test divided into three parts. And we’re not talking multiple choice. Candidates must complete two papers in brewing science and one in brewery engineering. It’s graded by a panel of brewing professors, scientists, and engineers.
Those interested in taking that rigorous test might consider studying right at the source as well. The IDB offers a number of tracks for all levels of brewing (and distilling) industry professionals. The London-based organization offers the “General Certificate in Brewing,” which it considers an entry-level discipline for anyone working on a brewery’s production team. Like the UC Davis’s introductory courses, it takes up a full work week in various locations around the United Kingdom and Ireland.
IDB also offers a separate course for those seeking a certificate in beer packaging, as well.
There are plenty of other opportunities the world over to learn brewing at any level of competence. Here are a few more worth noting:
Brewlab
Those who fancy spending some time in Scotland (and who wouldn’t?) will find plenty of educational opportunities at the University of Sunderland’s Brewlab. The program boasts its own 3.5-barrel brewery, as well as kegging and bottling facilities. Curricula range from individual one-day workshops on topics such as microbiology and quality assurance to a comprehensive nine-week course that offers a diploma in British Brewing Technology. Multiday courses on start-up brewing, brewing skills development, and intensive practical brewing skills are also on offer.
Beer curricula aren’t limited to those who want to work in a brew house. There are plenty of programs that address the marketing and general business side of the industry. It’s an area that’s generally been overlooked until recently. The commercial brewing world is full of one-time homebrewers who went pro and built enduring businesses. However, many of the craft pioneers had to make things up as they went along since they really were creating an industry from scratch. Today there is an exponentially greater number of brewing hobbyists with professional aspirations. But just because they can make a decent batch of beer and all of their friends tell them they should start a brewery, most don’t have any experience with the actual, well, business side of the business.
The Scandinavian School of Brewing
Perhaps the Nordic countries have a bit more allure for a prospective brewer. The Scandinavian School of Brewing (SSB)—founded jointly by the Danish Brewers’ Association, the Norwegian Brewers Association, and the Swedish Brewers’ Association (and joined in 1993 by the Finnish Brewers’ Association)—has been training beer professionals for more than ninety years. The school is conveniently located near Copenhagen, Denmark’s Carlsberg Brewery. SSB offers diploma courses for craft brewers and master brewers, as well as curricula rooted in skills such as brewing business and supply chain management, among others.
Portland State University
Those interested in beer rarely need an excuse to spend some time in Portland, but, alas, PSU’s “The Business of Craft Brewing” course is completely online. The curriculum consists of a series of four, five-week courses that must be completed within three years or in as little as two terms. Core requirements are “Basic Business for Craft Beverages” and “Craft Beverage Business management.” Remaining courses include “Strategic Craft Beverage Marketing,” “Finance and Accounting for the Craft Brewery,” and “Craft Beverage Distribution,” of which candidates must select two.
It’s encouraging that such a program exists. Virtually every homebrewer daydreams about one day going commercial, but more often than not they lack the proper business chops to truly make a go of it. Before candidates complete the program, they will have put together an investor-ready business plan.
San Diego State University: Professional Certificate in the Business of Craft Beer
Another West Coast university—though one in a much more consistently sunny and warm part of the country—offers another program for the business-minded. San Diego State presents two levels certification levels: Level 1 involves six classes that students can complete in a single academic year. Its expanded Level 2 certificate requires the completion of nine classes over the course of one and a half academic years. The program is hands-on and interactive, with participants splitting their time between the SDSU campus and breweries throughout San Diego (and there are a lot of them).
The College of DuPage Business of Craft Beer Certificate
Chicago has become something of an epicenter for all facets of beer education; Siebel’s there, of course, and it’s also the birthplace of the Cicerone program (more on that in a bit). And that’s no surprise because some of the most revered breweries have emerged from the Chicagoland scene. (Goose Island, Revolution Two Brothers, and Half Acre are notable home-grown operations; Northern California’s Lagunitas picked the city as the base of its second gargantuan brewery as it expanded eastward; and 3 Floyds is a mere hour away in Munster, Indiana.) The College of DuPage was quick to recognize its region’s contributions to better brewing—not to mention all of the employment that goes along with it—and launched the Business of Craft Beer certificate. Courses begin with the core prerequisite, “Foundations of the Craft Beer Industry,” which includes all of the usual historical topics, along with a focus on beer styles. Once students complete that one, they get down to the real brass tacks of the industry. “The Real Business of Craft Beer” details the often-arcane intracacies of the three-tier system, and “Marketing Craft Beer” deals with branding-related concepts.
University of Vermont Certificate Program in the Business of Craft Brewing
The University of Vermont’s program is the relative newcomer among the professional certificate programs focusing on the business of beer; the program’s first classes were in February 2016. This one’s a full twelve-week program—the length of an average college semester, give or take—covering everything from overall industry trends and dynamics to beer styles, branding, marketing, sales, and the legal landscape for craft beer. The University partnered with the Vermont Brewers Association to develop the curriculum, targeted primarily to college graduates with one to five years of experience in related areas such as sales, marketing, or business operations. An optional three-month internship at a commercial brewery or distributor follows.
Many individuals with a keen interest in beer might get scared off by some of the more involved curricula for working in the industry. But that’s okay because there are many ways to work in the beer world without necessarily working in an operating brewery. Most of the major brewing schools offer classes for those who want to learn the basics of style, tasting, ingredients, and proper serving without brewing so much as a single batch on their kitchen stoves. And then there are certification programs outside of academia . . .
Cicerone and BJCP
Server certification has been a huge part of the wine world for about as long as there has been a wine world—in the modern sense, anyway. With hundreds of diverse styles coming onto the scene during the craft beer explosion, it’s only logical that some sort of professional standards emerged to create the beery equivalent of sommeliers.
Cicerone
The most prominent and respected beer certification program is Cicerone, the brainchild of Ray Daniels, a well-known beer author, homebrewer, and festival organizer. He spent nine years working for the Brewers Association (and its precursor) as its director of craft beer marketing (a torch he ultimately passed to the talented, passionate beer-vangelist, Julia Herz).
Daniels sums up his motivation for launching the program in two simple words: “Bad beer.”
“I was traveling all over the country and promoting American craft beer—this was still the early 2000s and things were starting to perk up again but they still weren’t going full steam,” Daniels recalls. “In an awful lot of places I’d go, the servers didn’t know anything about [beer]. The pours looked like crap and the beer oftentimes didn’t taste very good. I thought, ‘My goodness, there are all these people jumping onto the craft beer bandwagon who don’t know anything about the proper service of beer.”
By 2007, Daniels was actively developing the program. On January 3, 2008, the program conducted its first exam.
However, it wasn’t an overnight success. At the time of its launch, the economy was on the precipice of a global meltdown. So, it was slow-going at first, and Cicerone’s widespread adoption wasn’t a sure thing. But the tipping point occurred at the tail end of 2009, and by the beginning of 2010, it was a self-sustaining success. That was also the year that it received the endorsement of the largest craft brewery in the country, Boston Beer. After that, it really took off.
The word “Cicerone” refers to “one who conducts visitors and sightseers to museums and explains matters of archaeological, antiquarian, historic, or artistic interest.”
To achieve Cicerone certification, candidates must be well-versed in five areas: beer storage, sales, and service; beer styles and culture; beer tasting and flavors; brewing ingredients and processes; and pairing beer with food. The program offers three levels of certification: Certified Beer Server, Certified Cicerone, and Master Cicerone.
To achieve the introductory level, candidates must answer a six-question multiple-choice online exam and score at least 75 percent. The test costs $69, which covers two attempts at passing (if needed). Generally, Certified Beer Servers have a working knowledge of beer storage and service issues, styles, flavors, and the fundamentals of brewing process and ingredients.
Becoming a Certified Cicerone is a considerably more involved affair. While there’s no prerequisite for the Certified Beer Server Exam, applicants planning to take the Certified Cicerone test must have passed that first level. And, instead of multiple-choice, candidates must complete a written exam composed of short-answer and essay questions, as well as a tasting and demonstration element. The stakes are a bit higher, as well; the minimum acceptable score is 80 percent—at least 70 percent of the tasting component. The initial test costs $395, and that only covers the first attempt. Retaking the tasting portion requires another $100. Retaking the written costs an additional $175. And given the written and practical nature of the exam, applicants must take it in person, which are scheduled across the United States and sometimes in Canada throughout the year.
Certified Cicerone naturally ramps up the knowledge requirement. Successful candidates must have a detailed knowledge of retail beer storage and service issues, expert-level knowledge of modern beers and styles, and some familiarity with beer history and historical styles. Their palates must be trained enough to identify flaws and pinpoint off-flavors. Their familiarity with brewing processes and ingredients also must be more advanced. However, applicants aren’t completely on their own. The organization provides a Certified Cicerone Syllabus that directs candidates to a range of sources to help them prepare.
The two highest levels are Advanced Cicerone and Master Cicerone. The former is actually a recent addition; it was incorporated into the program in 2016. Prior to that there was no intermediate level between Certified Cicerone and Master Cicerone. It was quite a leap between the two, as Master Cicerone is reserved for those with, as the program states, “encyclopedic knowledge” of beer and an extreme sensory acuity. The Master exam, which lasts two full days, costs $795; those needing to retake it will be charged 80 percent of that cost.
But Advanced Cicerone gives those who have passed the Certified Cicerone exam the chance to reach another level of achievement without the extensive amount of studying and preparation require to pass the Master Cicerone. The exam itself takes one day, versus the Master’s two-day commitment. There also will be more opportunities for candidates to take it. While the Master exam is scheduled only once or twice a year, the Advanced test will be available at least six times a year in various cities across the US.
When Cicerone started, its sole focus was certification. It had resisted offering any formalized classes or training program, encouraging applicants to prepare through their jobs, practical experience, and/or reading many of the in-depth books on all facets of beer making, proper handling, and appreciation.
“The point was to get other organizations to create their own training programs and resources that focused on Cicerone certifications,” Daniels notes. “We have seen a lot of things like that arise from individual Certified and Master Cicerones and from schools of various types.”
However, despite such developments, Daniels and his team continually has fielded requests from folks to offer more training resources. As a result, Cicerone did eventually devise training of its own.
“We specifically designed it to reach people who can’t attend class for whatever reason and need self-paced, part-time, and close-to-home sorts of learning,” Daniels explains.
For the Certified Beer Server level, the Cicerone program offers BeerSavvy and, for those seeking the next level, there’s Road to Cicerone.
“But as always, we offer these programs only as options,” Daniels claims, “and no one is required to use our training programs before they take the exams.”
So, outside of those specially tailored training options, home much time and effort should candidates be committing to bone up on all of the necessary concepts?
“It depends on your level of experience,” Daniels adds.
Those at the basic level taking the online BeerSavvy course, they can expect that to take between five and eight hours, but additional reading is strongly encouraged.
About fifty applicants take the Certified Beer Server each day. As of the end of 2015, some 65,000 have achieved the entry level certification. Close to 3,000 have passed the much more rigorous Certified Cicerone exam. The most recent tally puts the number of Master Cicerones at ten—two of those are from overseas. As craft beer has gone global, so has interest in Cicerone.
“Having started to travel more internationally in recent years, what I’ve come to realize is how huge the craft beer concept is overseas now,” Daniels says. “What we’re starting to see now is a pull from overseas people wanting Cicerone in their home market.”
Scotland’s BrewDog has been a significant early international adopter with nearly forty Certified Cicerones on staff. And the exams have attracted applicants everywhere from Canada and Mexico to Australia and South Korea.
It’s not only those who serve beer in bars in restaurants that are taking any of the Cicerone exams. The certification has become popular among distributors. As wholesalers have taken on more craft brands in the past decade, they’ve encouraged and in many cases required their sales teams and employees in other functions to get certified. It has become a significant marketing credential for many of those distributors, which are able to position themselves as educated experts, something that makes their retail customers more likely to invest in craft inventory.
And, as the world of beer is constantly in flux, the Cicerone team tweaks and updates the content of the exams every couple of years to keep things fresh and cutting edge. The program draws from a variety of well-respected sources. Cicerone uses the Brewers Association’s Draft Beer Quality manual for the draft dispensing portions of the exams. Style guidelines are based on those of the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP).
Beer Judge Certification Program
A much older certification program came into being not for those serving beer, but for those judging it in competition. The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) was founded in 1985 as a joint venture between the American Homebrewers Association and the Home, Wine, and Beer Trade Association (though now that partnership is defunct, and BJCP operates as an independent body).
Things have evolved for the organization since then, but its three stated objectives have remained pretty much consistent:
• Encourage knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the world’s diverse beer, mead, and cider styles.
• Promote, recognize, and advance beer, mead, and cider tasting, evaluation, and communication skills.
• Develop standardized tools, methods, and processes for the structured evaluation, ranking, and feedback of beer, mead, and cider.
(Mead and cider, though vastly different than beer, frequently get categorized with the more widely consumed beverage. Where beer’s base is fermented barley malt, mead’s is predominantly honey and cider’s is predominantly apples.)
Homebrewing had just been legalized in 1978, and over the next several years, a significant number of brewing enthusiasts had started getting into the hobby. With that came a wave of new homebrew competitions at the local, regional, and national level. However there was a dearth of qualified individuals who could bring an expert’s perspective to judging such contests. Current BJCP president, noted homebrewer, and author Gordon Strong paints the former landscape thusly:
“If you just kind of showed up at a beer festival or event where the general population is, what kind of beer would win if you had a people’s choice award? Is that really what you want? Is the average population going to know what makes a good Vienna lager versus a pilsner and be able to recognize brewing skill and the ability to create something of a specific style? For that, people have to have sensory training to properly evaluate a beer. That was really the need [BJCP] was trying to fill.”
Since its inception BJCP has administered its Beer Judge Examination to nearly 10,000 people worldwide; the organization estimates that some 5,500 are active judges in the program.
The organization has streamlined the test-taking process dramatically—to the point that there’s such an intensive screening process before the practical exam that most of the people who sit down to take it pass.
Initially there was a three-hour exam consisting of ten written questions and a practical portion with four beers to judge. It eventually switched to an online qualifier that must be completed before the test-taker graduates to the 90-minute practical, which involves analyzing six beers, each for fifteen minutes.
“Before you can even get in the door to the tasting exam, you’ve already had to take the online [qualifier],” says Strong. “It does a good job of weeding out the unprepared.”
About one-hundred-fifty locations host the BJCP exam each year. It’s usually administered by a senior BJCP judge, who’s required to register the exam, secure a distraction-free location, and enlist local proctors.
The six practical styles on the exam are always changing and are at the discretion of the judge administering the test. “We give them guidance and we ask them to pick from different groupings and get a range of beer styles from around the world—some from Germany, some from Belgium, the UK, the US, and different strengths.”
The organization also advises that the test include both ales and lagers. And not all of the beers are going to be good. Some are going to be middling and others are going to be downright bad—on purpose. Beers with known faults are good exam beers because part of what’s being tested is a prospective judge’s ability to recognize those faults—and they’re usually not pronounced or obvious to the layperson.
The BJCP’s evolving style guidelines make up a veritable encyclopedia of beer, cider, and mead style characteristics—the voluminous text is usually the go-to document for many judging competitions, whether or not the judges are certified.
The organization updates the style guide, on average, every four or five years to keep things current. The most recent update was in 2015; it now features more than one hundred style categories. BJCP style guidelines are the most widely followed across all of brewing.
Master Brewers Association of the Americas Certification
The Master Brewers Association of the Americas (MBAA) is a venerable organization that dates back to 1887 and has the stated purpose of “promoting, advancing, and improving the professional interest of brew and malt house production and technical personnel.” MBAA, like Cicerone, offers graduated levels of certification, depending on how serious about a career in beer stewardship the candidate may be. The Associate Beer Steward Certificate is geared toward front-of-the-house bartenders and wait staff, as well as beer retail personnel who want to expand their knowledge of the brews they serve. The hour-long open-book exam consists of sixty-five multiple-choice questions; candidates receive the first five chapters of the Beer Steward Handbook as a guide.
Those who desire to receive the Beer Steward Certificate proper are usually in sales and marketing roles at breweries or in managerial positions at distributorships and retail establishments and wish to maintain proper quality and freshness. This one’s a seventy-five-question, multiple-choice test based on the entire Beer Steward Handbook.
Beer 101
The Brewers Association, the trade association that represents American craft brewers (and is the umbrella organization for the American Homebrewers Association) offers its own certificate in the form of Beer 101. It’s an online course for anyone interested in craft beer who wants to enhance their education. The course covers the history of beer, brewing ingredients and processes, and acronym-friendly concepts like alcohol by volume (ABV), International Bitterness Units (IBU), and the Standard Reference Method (SRM) for specifying beer color. Other topics include pairing beer with food and beer styles. At the end of the course, which takes about an hour, there’s a fourteen-question exam. Enrollees may review the material as often as they wish prior to taking the test, but once the online test begins, there’s no cheating. The financial commitment is fairly modest—a mere $15—and if candidates don’t pass it the first time, they can retake it as many times as they would like at no additional cost.