Virginia Tech University may be best known for its sports, but the Blacksburg, VA school has now earned another important distinction: Its Department of Food Science and Technology Fermentation Program is now recognized by the Master Brewers Association of the Americas (MBAA), making it one of the first such programs in North American to earn this distinction.
Food science isn’t a groundbreaking academic branch, but the fermentation emphasis is a relative newcomer. Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is several steps ahead in this growing field and Brian Wiersema, manager of the Department of Food Science and Technology pilot plant at VT, says the recognition shows just how far his university has come in a relatively short time.
“The courses we are teaching net outcomes employers need,” said Wiersema. “This recognition puts Virginia Tech up there with peer institutions that have been doing this a lot longer. We’re really proud and really happy. This is a new program for us. To earn recognition in the first year is a major milestone.”
Virginia Tech opened its own brewhouse last year, both to educate students and serve as an incubator for new brewing and fermentation ideas and experiments. Since opening, the brewhouse has partnered with local and national breweries in a search for better brewing processes, procedures, innovations, etc. Brewing in Virginia is now an $8 billion dollar industry, generating nearly $3 billion in state tax revenue, making it important for both economic growth and for government functions.
MBAA recognition is mainly about brewing beer, but the Virginia Tech fermentation program goes much further than that. Many forget that fermentation is important not just to the adult beverage industry, but also to other industries such as cheese, yogurt, etc. Anything that improves the production, quality, efficiency, and other qualities of fermentation can go quite far in enhancing food production overall. Virginia Tech even has a hops production research program that examines hops and their growth. The program seeks out ways to make hops grow more efficiently, resist disease, and otherwise adapt more readily to different climates.
Virginia Tech’s Fermentation Program is among only eight universities in the United States and Canada to meet or exceed guidelines and learning outcomes established by the MBAA in their first year of the formal recognition process. It is joined by Appalachian State University, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Oregon State University, Southern Illinois University, University of California-Davis, and University of South Florida-St. Petersburg. Wiersema stresses that graduating from Virginia Tech’s program is practically a guarantee for future employment.
“If you are interested in brewing there are only a handful of places to get that education, and now we’re on that list,” Wiersema said. “Students from our department are 100 percent placed in jobs by graduation. There’s a huge need for food science and brewing science right now.”
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