Recently I started studying brewing science and technology with the Siebel Institute. Honestly American Brewers Guild was my first choice  I really liked the idea that they set you up with an apprenticeship but classes were filled so far in advance I could not have begun until 2014 and I wanted to get a start on my brewing education so I could enter the industry as soon as possible. That being said Siebel has the benefit of being Americas oldest brewing school and working with Dommens in Germany as well as the World Brewing Academy.

Siebel has a series of 3 modules (or classes) that make up the associates program in brewing science and technology (raw materials and wort production, beer production and quality control, finally packaging and process technology). The entire program can be completed at the Siebel campus in Chicago or online (online classes last 3 months each).


I chose to take an additional introductory class called the concise course in brewing technology.  It covers the basics of the material from all the other classes. This is ideal for me because I'm currently working on my scientific background at SUNY Albany. The online classes are a combination of reading materials video/audio presentations as well as weekly online chats. The reading materials (and extras) are very thorough but generally the videos are presented by Germans from the Dommens academy and are sometimes a bit hard to understand. The weekly chats are probably the best educational tool and I wish there were more of them, The instructor facilitates a discussion of the topics covered in the previous weeks and answers any questions anybody may have. Additionally at the end of each module there are a series of short answer questions that must be answered and graded by the instructor, the questions are not always easy (a lot of them are) but not hard either. The instructor always provides good feedback on the answers.

In summary I feel the course is good and I am learning quite a bit, I would like to see more discussions but that could be hard to facilitate. My instructor is great he has proven to be very accessible and answers my questions very quickly. He was even kind enough to issue me a letter of introduction to help me in my search for an entry level brewing position.