Zym: I always wonder too. Everyone who drinks my beer asks me when I'm opening a brewery. I ask other homebrewers when we're going to open a brewery and they look at me funny like... Dude, I'm an accountant and I need to pay the bills... I don't want to open a BREWERY! Okay, I get that part. I suppose it's like asking Aunt Bunny when she's going to open her own chicken soup restaurant.Yesterday one of my friends again is asking when I'm opening the brewery - I always just laugh. On the inside I'm wondering though...
This is a pretty good look inside a pro-brewers head. I have often wondered about people who go off to Siebel and what they picked up that homebrewers don't know. I'm sure that there is a TON of stuff, but it would be interesting to find out what a Siebel student learns that homebrewers would be interested in. I could see the issue of brewing on a commercial scale being weird. I did have the luck of walking around in a local brewery where a local homebrewer got a job (I believe the place hired him not knowing that he really didn't know his way around) and he asked me to help him out. We looked into the giant MT and brew kettle and played with some of the stuff in the walk-in cooler and then went to the supply room with stacks of grain sacks, etc. I would think that brewing on that scale would take some getting used to.I'd say you're right about the likelihood going down the larger the brewery is.. as it should. There's a lot at stake and a larger brewery can easily hire someone with the right education and experience for the job. There are so many factors in commercial brewing that homebrewing will never expose you to. Getting into the appropriate commercial brewing mindset is crucial for upkeeping quality, which was one of the better things I gained from Siebel. Be anal about everything, and be aware that everything makes a difference. There is no such thing as 'close enough', and there's no such thing as 'fixing' a batch. If there is just one person in the brewery (brewer, sanitation crew, QC and QA, managers, cellarmen) who is not following a solid scientific process, then quality goes to shit. Brewery design is critical. Every pathway, if too long or too short, too wide or too skinny, vertical when it should be horizontal, etc etc etc will be a make or break. And it's tricky because you may not have problems with a poor design until you make a subtle change like using a different brand of malt or running something at a slightly different temperature. The brewing process is a chain with hundreds of links and one design or process failure means a broken chain. It's necessary to discover what the industry has already learned thus far (education) and combine that with extensive personal experience to build or run a proper brewery. It's unwise to be any less prepared.
