Beer Goes to College--This Times as a Course

There’s no chugging allowed in Beer 101.

In fact, sipping is all that students can get away with in the strictly instructional microbrewery and pub at Johnson & Wales University. No zany beer bashes or overflowing mugs here.

And get this: It’s required.

The course, with the sterile title “Principles of Beverage Service--Beer,” is offered for the first time this semester at the renowned culinary school, which produces chefs for some of the country’s finest restaurants.

While most schools complain of too much beer on campus, Johnson & Wales is among a small number--UC Davis included--that brew it. School officials say teaching students to make and serve good beer is a natural extension of its mission.

“Beer appreciation is considered as complex as the appreciation of fine wine,” brewmaster Edward Korry said after a dedication for the Coors Brewing Lab, named for the nation’s third-largest beer-maker.

The combination of microbrewing and Coors Brewing Co., the company that brought you the Silver Bullet, may seem unholy to those who consider specialty beers sacred. But Coors’ president and chief operating officer says it’s a good fit.

“These students are going to be in touch with my beer-drinking consumers very soon,” W. Leo Kiely III said. “The dream is that someday we will develop a beer right here in this laboratory.”

For Korry, the steaming copper kettles, tubes and thermometers in his microbrewery are a beer drinker’s dream. Korry had brewed several batches at home, but with a dog, a cat and three kids, it was difficult to keep things sterile.

“It’s like making bread,” he said. “As long as you follow directions, keep the temperature right, you’re fine.”

Korry said most bars know little about what beer to serve or how to serve it, such as holding the glass straight when pouring from the bottle, one of the class lessons.

“You’re missing out on part of the experience. The right amount of head or foam,” he said.

The beer lab includes an adjoining pub where students taking the course will sip--not chug.

Beer lovers will cringe at what happened to the initial brews: Since the school isn’t licensed to serve beer, after a few sips, Korry said, the rest had to be dumped down the drain.

Future batches will be used for cooking and instructing students in the various tastes, temperatures and ingredients of stouts, pale ales and lagers.

Although freshmen are required to take the brewing class at Johnson & Wales, which has 2,300 students in its culinary program, there will be no major in brewing.

Coors and the school teamed up through a Coors employee who was a graduate of the culinary program. Coors, based in Golden, Colo., won’t say how much it donated or how much it cost to build the brewery.

Students who want extracurricular help in brewing can join the beer club.

Aaron Wilbur, a 19-year-old sophomore, said studying beer is great, but he can think of better ways to enjoy it.

“The drinking interests me a little more,” he said.