Volunteering in Austin breweries.

Well said...

 

Yeah well I'm still waiting for DFH to put out a beer that isn't a goopy mess.

 

I wonder what your smoking. DFH produces some of the best beers in the market. Even your own Beer Advocates give DFH beers over 80%. Midas Touch (84%), Festina Peche (82%), 60 minute (92%), 90 minute IPA (95%, which is world class here in BA), 120 minute IPA (90%).

You probably think Bud Light is a quality beer. Nice, smooth Bud Light huh?

 

This is the most heated DFH debate I've heard since Sam Caligione posted on BA! I'm on the edge of my seat!

 

As someone who lived in Texas for a while, volunteered in an Austin brewery when I could, and now lives in San Francisco I'm wondering what you mean by west coast mentality--More hops?

 

Edit: apparently I need to type faster too!

 

It's called an opinion, guys. Funny to see how people jump up someone's ass when they don't like a certain beer/brewery. Personally, I've also found very few DFH beers I enjoy, and I don't smoke anything or drink piss water.

Back on topic - brewing is cool!

 

I got my start as an intern (unpaid) at a small brewery in the town where I was going to college. Basically I just shoveled grain, weighed hops, and helped with bottling. This was a really small place with only a handful of people so it wasn't too hard to fit me in to do some easy tasks. Plus the pace was slow and the scale was small.

Now I work at a regional brewery with a dozen brewers and dozens of other staff, making batches from 100-500 barrels. We have a couple interns--one in the lab, who is a recent microbiology graduate from the local university, working for us for the summer, and a brewing intern who is over here for three months on break from getting his masters degree in brewing technology from Weihenstephan in Bavaria. We pretty much get a lab intern every summer, but for brewing, this is only the second one we've had in a couple years and both have been from Europe with degrees in brewing. When you get to our scale, it's just way more work than it's worth to train people to do things besides just clean floors, except in exceptional cases.

So I guess the smaller the better is what I'm saying. But don't get hung up on volunteering. For a lot of people, it takes the commitment of getting a job cleaning kegs and scrubbing floors. To get a brewing job where I work, you pretty much have to have gone to a brewing school, which just tells them that you are committed to this life and have a sound understanding of how a commercial brewery works. Siebel/UC Davis/American Brewers Guild aren't cheap but they're cheaper than an MBA and it's a good idea to have either a diploma from one of those or years of work experience if you want to start your own brewery.

 

Umm... homebrewing is necessary but not sufficient.

OP, you seem quite confident in opening a brewery, I wish you the best of luck. Any chance some Austin BAs could sample your homebrews?

P.S.

What does this mean?
And may I ask what type of engineer you were?

 

To me the phrase "west coast mentality" round these parts usually translates to "assholes".

 

nsheehan,

I agree with you, homebrewing is a necessity, but its not sufficient. I think the OP recognizes this and that is why he wants to volunteer in one of the local breweries. To at least gain some knowledge. Volunteering doesn't make anyone an expert, but it at least gives a person the flavor of how a brewery is run day-to-day. Obviously, not enough to go an open ones own brewery but any knowledge is better than none. Anyways, to answer your question I studied aerospace engineering.

OP, I agree with nsheehan that you sound confident in opening a brewery. I am assuming that you have a couple of award winning recipes up your sleeve? If so, what are your specialty beers?

Close, lol, but I was trying to go more for stuck up, whether I be wrong or not. And yes, I recognize that there are a few of those in DFW too.

 

The way you quote frustrates me.

 

Me too. Sexually.

 

I guess I didnt get the memo for the TPS reports...you mind getting me a copy?

 

I was looking to getting into homebrewing, but wanted to test the waters as a volunteer before starting up my own homebrewing operation. Anybody have an open volunteer position in the ATX area? Be Friendly.

 

Just seemed counter-intuitive to start typing a reply at the top, rather than where the cursor goes by default?

 

Weird, mine defaults on top...easy enough to fix if it makes people more comfortable.

 

Just wanted to say that it's funny that you responded after my post about volunteering at a brewery during college with a profile pic of the school that I was going to at the time. And you live in Texas. Weird. Assuming you went to UCSB, I applaud your ability to leave the Central Coast. After a few stints elsewhere, it sucked me back in.