So I'm a graduate student at the University of Washington and one of the unique fellowship opportunities at the school is called the Bonderman Travel Fellowship (http://bonderman.uw.edu/?page_id=5). The fellowship gives you $20,000 to spend 8 or more months traveling to at least 6 countries in at least 2 major regions (Western Europe, Canada, Aus, NZ don't count). While they expect you to be able to have a plan this is supposed to be a learning experience for people without significant foreign travel and they certainly don't want you working on a project. I thought it would be cool to use this opportunity to write up an application to visit countries with burgeoning or new craft brewing scenes. I think I'm right in believing however that if I ask them to send me around the world to just drink beer I probably won't make it past the first round. I thought of adding to my application the issue of water sustainability in these countries as it applies to brewing and farming. The advice I'm hoping to get from the BA community is what countries you think should fall on my list. I've thought of places like Japan, China, South Africa, and Mexico, but I'm looking for more. I figure I can also get away with one or maybe two Eastern European countries as well. Thanks for any input you all may have!
Wow. Good luck with this and how did I not apply to U. of W.?... I think the gatekeepers might see through "water sustainability" pretty clearly. Good lists, above. Throw in Cambodia as a place that has had a small spate of breweries crop up in recent years, with developmental challenges quite different than Japan or China. For Europe, Spain, Italy and Greece come to mind as places with (at least regionally) some water usage issues but a startup brewing scene. About which I know too little to guide you further, but dig around the Europe forum for those. Plan B: find other issues linking these countries and build your application around more serious stuff.. then raise a few glasses in honor of this Bonderman plus your fellow BAs as you go.
