Crafting a Brewer

My story starts, as most good ones do, with a drunk conversation on the roof of a twelve story building. It is funny how some of those at the time seemingly meaningless conversations can end up being what shapes your plan in life. In this case, it gave me the cojones to drop my medical school plans (I mean who would ever trust a Dr. Yeager anyway?) and decide to move all the way across the country to California for the Master Brewers Program.

After what seemed to be an eternity at my post-undergrad-dead-end-sucked-ass-FML job as an auditor for an electronic recycling company, the time to pack up and leave finally came. I loaded my car with all the must haves (clothes and brewing equipment) and set off on an epic venture. Since my best friend and future business partner bailed on me last minute for the 3,000 mile trip because of a new job, I was extremely lucky to have my friend Madison as a stand-in and primed to start out on her own life quest for the holy grail.


We headed out on New Year's Eve with plans to stop in Nashville, St. Louis, Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City and end up in quirky Davis, California. After nine days, $1200 and 15 breweries (Yazoo, Morgan Street, Schlaflys, Upstream, Sudwerk, Rockslide, Broadway Brewhouse, Downtown Joe's, Rockbottom, The Great Divide, Rubicon, Silverado, Breckenridge, Squatters and Epic) I had a new sense of how important is it to do something you love.


The Master Brewers Program has been one of the best decisions of my life. On my first day of class everyone was given nineteen books for an eighteen week program, a coffee cup and a harsh realization that we all knew absolutely nothing about beer before this. I am now over halfway through the program and I am still dumbstruck at the mountain of information there is to take in. During the first eight weeks we covered review of chemistry, barley, technology/biochemistry of malting, brewhouse technology, mashing biochemistry, hops technology/analysis, water chemistry for brewing, beer foam/gushing, handling/biochemistry/analysis of yeast, beer filtration/carbonation/stabilization, yeast flavor compound formation, microbial stability, quality control/assurance, sanitation/effluents, sensory evaluation, packaging and brewery engineering.

I am impressed if you read all of that, let alone know what the heck most of that means. As hard as that all seems to take in, its not all that daunting (having taps to get free beer in the back of the classroom helps). I am able to learn from two of the greats in the industry, Michael Lewis and Charles Bamforth and I have been able to enjoy beers with titans in the brewing world such as Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River, Floris Delee from Dogfish Head, VP of operations at Miller-Coors, and head brewers from Sierra Nevada and Anheuser- Busch.


Since reaching Davis my life has been full of so many new things, getting my ass kicked by brewing science, becoming single (a positive thing but slightly reminiscent of breaking your favorite beer glass, the one that gave you an awesome head), attending the Craft Brewers Conference, camping on the coast of Northern California in Muir woods, sliding down a 40ft concrete slide in a snow sled and meeting brewers who are always great/interesting people. All I can say is that if the rest of this year is anything like it has been so far, I can't wait..bring it on!

Beer girl of the day!

Caption contest, just post a comment with the funniest/dumbest caption you can think of for this picture. I haven't figured out a prize just yet but I'm working on it!

Example: "Oh, that's how a girl gets a yeast infection!"