Week 4

Monday: Well I did about as well as I thought I would on the test from last week...anyway, we studied Filtration, Centrifugal Sedimentation, and Sterile Filtration. It was interesting stuff. The Sterile Filtration part was good except the guy giving the lecture worked for a company owned by 3M, and every slide had their logo on it. A lot of the lectures are starting to feel like a sales pitch. I am begining to feel ready to be out of the class room, and actually learning by doing the tasks we are being taught. I learn much better when I can get my hands on something, and not just by learning it from an outdated slide. Anyway enough of my rant, I am still enjoying myself, just ready to be in Germany where we will actually be making beer.

Tuesday: Tuesday was another microbiology day where we studied, Detection Methods, Control Factors, and Beer Spoilage Organisms.We also did more sensory training, this time concentrating on esters and phenols. All in all it was a pretty good day.

Wednesday: We studied Flavor Stability, Beer Hazes, Beer Foam, and Beer Gushing with Michael Zepf from Doemens Academy. Who knew studying bubbles could be so interesting? Michael is a "gushing expert" so we spent quite a bit of time on that. The odd part was the night before, I had opened a bottle of pilsner that started to gush, not too fun when that happens, and it can be caused by fusarium, which is a mold that affects the barley in the field, as well as calcium oxalate, and many other factors.

Thursday: was all about Beer Color, Maturation/Storage Principles, Cleaning & Sanitation, and Brewery CIP. Interesting stuff. Later that night I got the best early birthday present ever. Friends back home pitched in to surprise Jen and fly her out to Chicago for an extended weekend. She got to our apartment right as we were finishing one of our bi-weekly study groups and got to meet some of the crew here.

Friday: We has our weekly quiz. I feel pretty good about it but as usual we will see. We then went on to study Carbonation, Quality Management, and Taste Panels. We actually did a taste panel test where were given three samples of beer and told that one was different. Then the class was individually asked to say which they thought was the odd one out. It was not an easy test, but for me I found one to be slightly thinner in the mouth feel than the others. I turned out to be right. The sample I chose was Bud Light and the other two were regular Budweiser. It's surprising how similar they are. The other interesting thing is that the class we almost evenly split 3 ways as to which they thought was the off one. We then went on to do a styles tasting of German & Czech Republic beers. Most of the beers were nothing new, but we did get to drink Schlenkerla Rauchbier which is one of my favorite beers. Smokey and awesome. After that we piled in a bus for a field Trip to Metropolitan Brewing. It was a neat place and they were very gracious hosts. Afterwards Jen and I went to Xoco....YUM!!!




Zahm and Nagel "shankout" device for checking carbonation.



Saturday: Jen and I went down to the Field Museum. The weather was windy/snowy/cold, so it was nice to be inside. There were some pretty cool exhibits.

Later that night a group of us went out for dinner and drinks for my birthday. It was an awesome time and  I felt blessed to get to be around such great people.

Sunday: Jen and I went out to brunch. After that we came back to the apartment for awhile, then headed down to Millennium Park. We finished off the night with some unhealthy hot dogs and some Indiana Jones movies. What a great week.