Colorado State University's brew school expands in Fort Collins

A pair of breweries are being assembled on the Colorado State University campus.

A 264-gallon system — the largest housed at any four-year university in the country — is being built inside Lory Student Center’s Ramskeller Pub. A 53-gallon system is being built in a Gifford Building laboratory.

The brewing systems are part of the university's rare four-year bachelor's degree track specializing in brewing. Front Range Community College and the University of Northern Colorado both offer two-year programs dedicated to the craft, but four-year programs are rare. 

Oregon State and University of California-Davis are among a handful of other universities in the country with four-year programs similar to that at CSU, which had 141 enrolled students at the start of the fall semester. 

Such programs are fostering the next leaders of the beer industry, which thrives in Fort Collins with more than 20 breweries. 

CSU's new systems will help the four-year-old fermentation science and technology program grow even further. Some of the beers will even be sold at the Ramskeller.

“It will help make the program what we want it to be,” said program director Jeff Callaway. “We want it to be a hands-on experience and one that is useful to the industry in terms of research and training.”

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How the program started

It was just before the fall semester of 2004, and now-emeritus professor Jack Avens was swamped in his CSU office preparing for four food science classes that week.

New grad student and avid homebrewer Dave Davis came to Avens wondering why the land-grant university located in a city and state with a burgeoning brewing industry didn’t have a course dedicated to the science and technology of brewing.

“I didn’t have an answer for him,” Avens said. “I usually have an answer for everyone.”

Avens and Davis formulated a brewing science and technology course. It was eventually approved and offered for the first time in fall 2005. Students worked with basic 5-gallon homebrewing equipment.

“We didn't want it to be just about homebrewing,” Avens said. “There was a club in town to learn that. Instead, we wanted it to be a course about the commercial brewing industry.”

The class became so popular that it was eventually offered during both semesters and increased from two to three credits.

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Davis, who now works at Noosa Yoghurt, and Callaway both served as grad assistants for the course.

The class was boosted in 2008 when Odell Brewing Co. co-founder Doug Odell donated a SABCO brewing system that’s still used by students. In 2009, New Belgium Brewing Co. agreed to fund and supply an adjunct professor from the brewery every year — the tradition continues today with New Belgium brewer Jeff Biegert.

Employees from Coors, New Belgium, local quality assurance labs and a small Fort Collins craft brewery called Three Four Beer Co. are among the program’s teaching staff, as is former Oskar Blues Brewing quality assurance lab manager Katie Fromuth.

Anheuser-Busch is also a supporter of the program.

“The industry has been behind us in every way,” Callaway said. 

Avens and the rest of the food science department were commissioned to formulate the curriculum for a fermentation science major in 2010. 

The program was approved to start in 2013 and includes much more than brewing beer, with students also fermenting sauerkraut, yogurt, sausage, bread and kombucha. Advanced chemistry and biology classes are required for the program's students.

“For a science geek like me, it was the perfect program,” said Lauren Sandell, a 2016 graduate of the program who now works in quality assurance for Kathinka Labs.

The program features numerous field trips to breweries of all scales. Students brew on the Odell pilot system annually and celebrate the finished product at an end-of-the-semester tapping party.

At one point of every semester, students are lectured in consecutive classes by Blue Moon creator Keith Villa, longtime New Belgium brewmaster and sour beer pioneer Peter Bouckaert, and Odell. The final field trip for every student in the program is to the Fort Collins Anheuser-Busch brewery, which produces 10 million barrels each year.

“Basically you get your knowledge straight from the field,” Sandell said. "You learn from real people who have dealt with these real problems.”

All of the physical brewing at CSU is reserved for seniors. Students must be 21 or older to take classes in which beer is made.

“An essential part of any food processing course is to be able to sample the final product and see if what you’ve done was correct,” Avens said.

Other local brew school programs

CSU isn’t the only area college with breweries on campus. 

Front Range Community College runs a feeder program to CSU's fermentation science and technology program. The Longmont campus is debuting a new 10-gallon brewing system this fall.

“As a community college, we are all about giving people skills they can use,” said program director Louise Brown. “The new system takes us up a notch and gives us a higher ability to send students out with so much more knowledge.”

Brown’s classes take field trips to nearby Oskar Blues, Left Hand Brewing and St. Vrain Cidery of Longmont, as well as Avery Brewing and Upslope Brewing of Boulder.

More:Your guide to brewery tours in Fort Collins

In Greeley, the University of Northern Colorado offers an undergraduate certificate and a minor in brewing laboratory science.

The program added a new seven-barrel system in 2015. In the main brewing class, students brew three batches of beer. Like the other programs, there are field trips and guest speakers from within the industry.

The UNC program also heavily focuses on quality assurance testing skills.

“If people are interested in getting into the industry, we want to help people get their feet wet,” said program director Michael Mosher.

Follow Jacob Laxen on Twitter and Instagram @jacoblaxen.