The Sustainable Brewing program at KVCC recently won a bronze medal at the Great American Beer Festival in the Contemporary Gose category.
DID THIS KALAMAZOO COLLEGE MAKE THE FIRST STUDENT-BREWED BEER TO EVER EARN A GABF MEDAL? Karl Klockarsr MiBrewTrail On September 10th, Brian Lindberg and his team did something that perhaps no one else has done in the history of the Great American Beer Festival: They earned a GABF medal for a beer brewed by a college brewing program. Feel free to double-check our research, but we searched every single year of GABF medal winners (all posted here) and we couldn’t find a single reference for “university,” “college” or any other better-known brewing curriculum (like the program at UC-Davis, for example). Lindberg is the Sustainable Brewing Instructor at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, which took home a Bronze Medal for their “Sour Flower” contemporary gose; a fairly competitive category, with 118 entries from around the country. After all the judging was completed, the KCVV beer was bested only by Pennsyl-
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vania’s Workhorse Brewing and Iowa’s SingleSpeed Brewery.
never brewed a batch of beer, and give them the education they need and the practical experience they need to get Not bad for a student recipe, brewed by there, you know? Enough to be dangercollege students! ous in the craft brewing industry. And to So … how does a community college excite them, so maybe they do want to put together an award winning recipe? go on to UC-Davis or Western [Michigan What did they need to do to get their University] or some of the schools that beers entered into the competition? have in-depth, scientific programs that What else did they send for judging...and deal with microbiology, biochemistry and are their students planning to go pro? We the stuff that melts most people’s brains chatted with Lindberg in the wake of his when it comes to science. team’s big win: We’ve got a taproom on campus that MiBrewTrail: Let’s start by talking about sells our student beers; it lets students your program in general. What does get in the building, work all the time KVCC’s brewing certificate look like? on our little brew system and bring it Brian Lindberg: We started about six through from grain to glass, and then to years ago, and the idea behind our have the experience of actually serving program was [that] you’ve got these that behind the bar to patrons. Now, universities that really get deep into like obviously COVID has kind of slowed that the science of brewing, and we want to down a little bit but we’re getting back come from more of a practical approach. there. Right now it’s an exciting time to be a student and also it’s an exciting time We want to bring in your weekend warrior home brewer, or a student that’s to be an instructor again.
MBT: And how did you find yourself at the helm of this program? BL: Honestly, right before the program started was my first experience in the brewing world. I started my professional career as a microbiologist, working for places like Amway, Old Orchard juice brands - being a quality assurance personnel. I got kind of sick of that and I saw this opportunity at Saugatuck Brewing Company, where they needed someone to run their quality department. So I somehow convinced them to give me a job having zero beer background; maybe I had homebrewed once in my entire life. I took off running there, and the farther I got into it, the more I realized that a lot of people understand what they’re doing, but, but not why they’re doing these things. Like, you ask a brewer, “so why are you mashing at 67 degrees Celsius?” And they’re like, “well it’s because the recipe tells me to.” But why, you know? People struggle with the “why,” and so I
MI Brew Trail |Fall 2021
