Improve your beer quality know-how during this week-long Oregon State course

Beer quality is a top issue for all craft breweries. To better hone in on some best practices, check out this Beer Quality and Analysis Series offered by Oregon State University. This series of online and onsite courses teaches you the fundamentals of basic microbiology and its role in the brewing process and gives you the tools to analyze and evaluate beer to influence quality control in a production brewing setting.

Science of brewing

Designed for professional and advanced hobbyist brewers, Microbiology and Beer Analysis for the Brewer is an intensive, hands-on experience, covering the fundamental techniques and microbiology essential to making the perfect brew. Dive into six weeks of online course material and then join OSU’s fermentation science experts for four days onsite in Corvallis, Ore. Comprehensive course material emphasizes yeast, yeast handling, identification of wort/beer spoilage organisms using microscopy, staining and differential media.

Once you have a handle on the science of beer, you’ll craft your capability to analyze beer quality by evaluating the aspects of quality control in packaged beer. Additionally, data analysis and interpretation will be addressed where it pertains to a production brewery setting.

What you’ll learn

• Microbiological techniques and American Society of Brewing Chemists Methods of Analysis used in brewing QA/QC labs
• Fundamental techniques for isolating, enumerating, staining and screening brewing yeast and contaminants.
• Official methods that can be implemented in a brewery lab
• How to use modern equipment to analyze wort/beer and evaluate process quality
• Official methods used to evaluate beer production in a QA/QC lab
• Scientific principles behind packaged beer quality and analysis
• Ways to implement and analyze statistical data as it relates to brewing quality beer
• Quality assurance vs. quality control as it applies to a brewery
• Lessons from discussions with hop and barley breeders from Oregon State and industry tour of a Willamette Valley hop farm

Below is the expected learning topics for the on-site portion of the course:

Monday

• Microscopy basics
• Aseptic techniques
• Isolation of pure cultures
• Gram staining
• Differential media

Tuesday

• Yeast counting
• Assessing yeast viability
• Forced fermentations for estimating attenuation
• Yeast propagation
• Data analysis and interpretation

Wednesday

• Wort gravity via hydrometer, densitometer and refractometry
• Ethanol — via density + refractometry and Beer Alcolyser
• Beer calculations — extract of original wort, real degree of fermentation, carbohydrates, calories
• Diacetyl measurement

Thursday

• Package gases (TPO, CO2, headspace air)
• Dissolved oxygen in beer
• Package fill height
• Beer clarity and color
• IBUs in beer

Friday

Willamette Valley Pilot Brewery and Hop Farm Tour. Quality Assurance + Willamette Valley Pilot Brewery and Hop Farm Tour. This Friday session that concludes the Beer Quality and Analysis Series will focus on quality assurance and brewing ingredients.