So, last week I had the pleasure of attending the Master Brewers Association of the Americas' course in Brewery Engineering. It was really interesting! Of course, as homebrewers, we know a lot of stuff about making beer. But scaling it up to a large production facility definitely requires some forethought. Being a metallurgical engineer by degree, I found the discussions on brewery materials quite fascinating. I also enjoyed the discussions on valves and pumps (and we even had the opportunity to disassemble and reassemble some valves, and replace seals and o-rings on pumps). And we did a lot of calculations for proper sizing of brewery equipment, and calculating losses through the various processes.
It was also really cool to meet folks from lots of different breweries around the country. Each student provided several (10!) cases of their brewery's beer, which we kept in our hospitality room fridge for after class enjoyment. I got to sample some very tasty brews that otherwise I'd never try, because most small breweries don't distribute outside their home state. Very cool.
Plus I got this nifty diploma

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All in all, a very interesting and useful week of education! The course is offered annually, and is open to anyone who wants to take it (though I am not sure it would be so useful for the average homebrewer, though homebrewers have been known to attend).
And, later this month, I'll be heading to the MBAA Brewing and Malting Science course (which I think would be more useful for homebrewers). Should be fun!
