Siebel Institute Experience

As you have seen from previous post, I have been fortunate enough to have the experience of taking a class at Sudwerks via the U.C. Davis brewing program. Next on my bucket list was to attend a class at the oldest brewing school in the United States... Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago. Established in 1872, Siebel has a long history with the craft beer industry and many brewers choose to go through their program which utilizes classwork at their location, online, and satellite campuses in Germany.

I attended the Sensory Panel Management class, a course designed to teach individuals the importance of quality control, sensory analysis, and proper testing methods. An often ignored field, quality control and sensory panels are vital tools to successful breweries to prevent off flavors from going to market and also "flavor drift" which is the gradual change of a beer's acceptable flavors due to a lack of control and testing data.

Each of the three days we attended class we had a different instructor, each highly respected in the field. On day one we focused on training methods for flavor analysis with Mary Pellettieri, the Business Operations Manager at MillerCoors. On day two we covered methods of training and assembling a sensory panel (including proper facilities and incentives) with Lauren Salazar, Sensory Specialist from New Belgium who also works with blending and development of their sour beers. On the final day we went over specific types of test and statistics with Suzanne Thompson, the Analytical/Sensory Services Manager with MillerCoors.

I highly suggest attending Siebel. Chicago is a beautiful city, the instructors were fantastic, and I had the pleasure of sharing a classroom with folks from Firestone Walker, Shipyard, Yuengling, Magic Hat, Rahr & Sons, Steam Whistle,  and Chicago's newest brewery Broad Shoulders as well as  many others. Every day brought new info, new connections, and great meals courtesy of Goose Island Brewing's pub across the street from Siebel.

I look forward to November when I will be attending the Master Of Beer Styles & Evaluation course instructed by Ray Daniels (creator of the Cicerone program) and Randy Mosher (author of Tasting Beer).

 This short video will give you a little bit of the local sights as well as some video from inside Siebel. Enjoy...


Trip to Chicago / Siebel Institute from Tim Decker on Vimeo.

Craft Beer in the African American Community

When you think of the typical beer enthusiast, usually a caucasian bearded man comes to mind (looks like I fit the bill). Rarely would a member of the black community be the first to come to mind. Why is that?

There are various explanations that have been given. Very few are more than speculation but the question has been raised including on online beer forums and message boards (Madison Beer Review for example). Searching online will also, unfortunately, bring up viewpoints that only reinforce stereo-types.

Does it have cultural connections? Europe has a long history of beer brewing. Is it due to advertising and beer being marketed to white people? Most macro beer commercials consist of a large group of smiling people with one or two designated people of color. Even worse... when they DO feature black people as the main character they make them look ridiculous:

So are there positive examples of African American people in the beer community? Of course there are!

Garrett Oliver is the brewmaster for Brooklyn Brewing Co., Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Companion to Beer, author of several books, and world-renowned beer expert.

Whether you are Democrat, Republican, or Independent... if you are a beer enthusiast you have to appreciate Barack Obama's open love for beer. At his Super-Bowl party he requested craft beers be on hand included a Honey Ale brewed by a White House chef.

So remember...this is not an accurate portrayal of all craft-beer drinkers...

And this is not an accurate portrayal of African-American people consuming alcoholic beverages:

Advice from Greg Koch (Stone)

Greg Koch, CEO of Stone Brewing, recently made an appearance as the keynote speaker at the Cuayamaca Community College graduation ceremony. Here is some of the advice he gave as reported from the college's blog...

1) Do good things - It does matter. Everything you do in this world counts. It counts for the worse, or it counts for the better.

2) Be a conscious consumer - In the grocery store, in the shopping mall, or online, don't buy what the man on the TV tells you to buy. Refuse to be led by the nose with the idea that you need to buy, buy, buy and spend, spend, spend.
3) Follow the passionate path, and have fun - Do things that matter to you. Follow your heart. Follow your passion. Do things that you enjoy.
4) Ignore everyone - This is key is you're to follow the passionate path. You'll need to realize that you cannot listen to other voices than your own. It's difficult enough to overcome the doubt, fear and negativity of our own internal voice. Don't allow any external voices to add to it.

5) Fail - "Don't be afraid to fail" is what many people will tell you. I want to amp that up a bit. I want to urge you to stretch, push and risk so much that you DO fail. Make mistakes. Maybe try and avoid huge ones, but you can recover from nearly all of the medium-sized mistakes, and definitely all of the small ones. 

You can find the full summary of what he had to say at the college's blog HERE.