Last in a series on beer by Joe Wiebe, author of Craft Beer Revolution: The Insider’s Guide to B.C. Breweries.
Are you getting more and more interested in craft beer with every delicious sip you take? As you explore the world of craft beer by tasting a variety of beer styles and visiting brewery tasting rooms, the next natural step might be a desire to learn more about beer: how it is made, the ingredients that go into it, what the different styles are and where they came from.
There are many ways to go about learning more about beer, including classes, workshops, clubs, certification courses and even college programs.
The easiest way is to visit a brewery tasting room or a beer-focused taproom, order a variety of beers and ask questions about them. The knowledgeable staff will likely be able to share a lot of information about the beer styles and the breweries that made them. You could also look for a book on the subject — there are many excellent resources that have been published in recent years (including my own, Craft Beer Revolution: The Insider’s Guide to B.C. Breweries).
Victoria Beer Week’s Beer School program is a casual and fun way to learn more about your favourite beverage. As we like to joke, it’s the only school where drinking beer is required!
The curriculum includes four classes spread throughout beer week (March 6 to 14), along with the Greg Evans Memorial Beer Walk (Saturday, March 6), a downtown walking tour led by Chris Adams (Ghostly Walks) that honours the legacy of local beer historian Greg Evans, who died in 2018.
The classes include: Food + Beer = Delicious! on Tuesday, March 10 at Île Sauvage Brewing; Walk on the Wild Side on Wednesday, March 11 at Île Sauvage Brewing; Beer + Coffee on Thursday, March 12 at Discovery Coffee Roastery; and Party Like It’s 999 on Saturday, March 14 at the Argyle Attic. Full details can be found on the VBW website.
Joining CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) will also connect you to a group of knowledgeable beer lovers who share a passion for craft beer. CAMRA’s Victoria chapter hosts regular events at local breweries, including tours and tastings. If you are interested in making beer yourself, BrewVic is a local homebrewers’ club that has lots of information on its website and also offers meet-ups and workshops. BrewVic also helps co-ordinate Victoria Beer Week’s annual Homebrewing Workshop at the Moon Under Water Brewpub (already sold out).
If you want to get involved in the craft beer industry yourself, you might consider exploring the Cicerone Certification program (the beer equivalent to a wine sommelier). The basic Certified Beer Server level, which many taprooms and craft beer bars expect their servers to have, can be obtained by taking a 60-question online test; the Cicerone website has resources available to help you prepare for that. The higher levels require more study and practice.
Becoming a Certified Cicerone involves taking a four-hour exam that includes written, tasting, and demonstration portions. The Advanced Cicerone designation requires successfully passing a one-day exam — there are just 11 Advanced Cicerones in Canada, including only one on Vancouver Island: Stephane Turcotte, owner-brewmaster at Île Sauvage Brewing here in Victoria. Finally, there is the Master Cicerone designation, which only one Canadian has achieved: Toronto’s Mirella Amato.
If it’s your goal to work in the industry as a brewer or to open our own brewery one day, then you might consider enrolling in the Brewing and Brewery Operations program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Langley. KPU’s two-year program is training the next generation of craft brewers in British Columbia.
Graduates can already be found working in local breweries, including Canoe Brewpub, Category 12 Brewing, Swans and others. The Brewing and Brewery Operations program was actually named Brewery of the Year at the 2019 B.C. Beer Awards, so that says something about the high quality of its facility and training program.
In 2017 Victoria Beer Week launched a $2,000 scholarship for a student from Vancouver Island studying at KPU. Each year we ask breweries to contribute some money and then top that up from our revenues to fund the prize. This year’s scholarship recipient, Matt Pereszlenyi, will be serving his beer at two events during Victoria Beer Week: Lager Than Life and Saturday Night Casks.
Beyond Victoria Beer Week, the Victoria Beer Society hosts Beer School classes for its members several times a year.
For more information about all these events, go to victoriabeerweek.com.
The series
Lager is no longer the boring beer your dad drank
