I don’t know about you, but I love beer. I mean, I fucking love it. I don’t need to drink a lot of it but a cold one at the end of a long day can bring a smile to my face and sigh from my lips.
It’s not just me who thinks so. Today, beer is the most widely consumed alcoholic beverage in the world and almost every country has its own unique style of brewing. Germany has an entire festival dedicated to the beverage which is so famous that people go there just to attend it.
That’s the sort of happiness only beer can bring. Good on you Germany, keep Oktoberfest alive.
Even historically, beer is one of the oldest beverages in recorded history. A Sumerian text from ancient Mesopotamia which honours Ninkasi, the patron goddess of brewing, contains the oldest known (3900 years) recipe of making beer from barley known to the world.
This is the ancient Sumerian recipe for how to make the dankest of beers.
Given the popularity of beer, it comes as a bit of a surprise that there is a dirth of courses which teach advanced brewing as a vocational science in the world. Which is where Oregon State University stepped in with a course called Fermentation Science.
Pretty fucking cool, right? But even if you don’t have the time or the resources to go all the way to Oregon to study, you can still learn from the online course in brewing offered by Oregon State Uni, designed by faculty member Dr. Tom Shellhammer who had this to say.
There are plenty of introductory-level brewing related courses and programs for beginners or home brewers to get into the field, but not many options for advanced classes for professional development.
In a bid to make up for this lack of options, these courses offer an in-depth study into the science of brewing, the chance to learn from the worlds greatest brewmasters and on-site visits to breweries and farms that produce the ingredients of beer. Of course, the former is far more extensive.
If you find yourself interested in this, here’s a video by OSU to give potential students an insight into the course.
