Professors at SFU Surrey are taking their students’ thirst for knowledge literally, offering a new course this Spring semester called “The Science of Brewing.”
Co-developed and taught by Chemistry Professor Uwe Kreis and Biology Professor Zamir Punja, the course (BISC 372) will provide the opportunity for students to explore the scientific, research and business aspects of the beer-making industry.
“It’s not about drinking beer,” laughed Kreis in an interview with The Peak. “It’s really about understanding the process and what actually goes into making a good beer.”
The Science of Brewing is a product of the $2 million INSPIRE initiative that Dean of Science, Claire Cupples, launched last year to stimulate change in the way science is taught at SFU. The initiative brought professors from various disciplines together to brainstorm innovative courses that would provide students with applicable skills for the industry as “a lot of them won’t end up in a traditional science job,” according to Kreis.
“It’s hard to get a company to really devote their space, their time, their facility and their people.”
– Zamir Punja,
biology professor
Additional course proposals included the science of skin and the study of fuel cells (which would involve a partnership with Ballard Power Systems) but the team settled on the brewing course because of its mass appeal and the access to a corporate partner. Central City Brewing Co., which brews Red Racer beer and is looking to distill gin and whisky in the future, is SFU Surrey’s neighbour and an eager partner for the program.
“Central City Brewing will actually play a somewhat active role in the process,” explained Kreis. “They’re sharing resources with us. We will be running some of the analytics and some of the things they actually do when they check on how well they’re doing for the batch of beers going and so on.”
“They’re actually going to have some of their lead researchers come and talk to the students in terms of lectures,” added Punja. “You don’t really see that happening a lot with other industries except perhaps in business. It’s hard to get a company to really devote their space, their time, their facility and their people to actually get involved in a course.”
BISC 372 will be open to all students who have over 60 credits, as it involves not just the science behind brewing beer, but the marketing and business aspects as well.
Students will analyse components such as flavour, colour, texture, and alcohol content.
“We’re making a lot of effort to keep the science at a level that students from different backgrounds can really enjoy the process,” said Kreis. “We’d like to see a variety of different students from different faculties.”
In addition to Punja’s and Kreis’ expertise, students in the course will receive guest lectures from experts in the industry and participate in panels, such as an introduction to tasting. During the lab segments, students will be able to visit the microbrewery and collect samples for scientific analysis of components such as flavour, colour, texture, and alcohol content.
“There will be some other hands-on things that they can do with the ingredients — with the barley, the hops, and all the various things that go into it, so they will be setting up mini experiments in the labs in Surrey,” said Punja.
Punja also feels that for some students the applicable science learned in the course may come in handy sooner rather than later.
“The industry hopes at least that some students will get so jazzed or turned on by it that they might actually want to work there over the summer, like as an internship,” Punja said. “They do have four of those, probably for their students that really show the most motivation, so there could be spin-off opportunities for students who take the course.”
