I have taken the Concise Course in Brewing Technology at Siebel (October 2013), and am currently in the Master Brewer program this year from Feb 3-July 25. I had a great experience with the concise course, and the master brewer program promises to be great. If you have the $$$, I would recommend Siebel to anyone looking to get into the industry.
Here are some links:
My in depth review of the concise course (i go into a lot of the things i will mention further down the thread):
here is the first in a series of videos i will be doing along my journey to becoming a master brewer (its long, but i talk alot about what the classes are like).:
i would recommend subscribing to that channel of mine if you want Siebel related videos. The one where i posted the concise course review is pretty much my homebrewing channel.
Here is what I wrote in someone else's thread:
I recently (October 19-November 1 2013) took the on campus Concise Course in Brewing Technologies (2 weeks in Chicago as opposed to 3 months online...same price as online + expenses). I would recommend this class to anyone considering going pro. I am enrolled in the Master Brewer Program which will begin in February and end late July, and once I come back and get my own thing going, the Concise Course (on campus) will be budgeted into the capital expenses for any hands on partners/brewers I have join the team.
It was intense (9am-5pm M-F) with each day broken into one hour (a few presentations lasted 3 hours) lectures. When the 2 weeks was up, we had touched on literally every aspect of commercial beer brewing, from safety to packaging and everything in between. We also had several sensory panels (Budweisers spiked with off flavors) as well as styles tastings, and that was pretty cool. The concise course and Master Brewer program get a lot of material from the Kunze book (which I am working my way through now in preparation for next year).
The teachers were great. One was the brewmaster for AB for 27 years at various factories, and brought that knowledge to the table. He was much better on the production side of things than he was on the raw materials, but that was no big deal. Another was Matt Bryndison (sp?) brew master at Firestone Walker. What an incredible knowledge base that guy was. Another teacher had gone through the Diploma program a few years ago, and has worked in the industry since, and he brought a real life "been there done that" kinda knowledge base to the table. Keith was hilarious, and Lyn, the president was awesome.
We had a South Korean, a few mexicans (Modelo), 2 canadians, a guy from Israel, a guy from MillerCoors, quality control girl from Kona, people who had never brewed before, people from Smirnoff parents company Diago, homebrewers, and people working in the industry on all size systems.
Siebel's new facility is in the bottom floor of Kendall College, which is a pretty awesome culinary school. For $5/meal you could choose from one of three food areas: the cafeteria (where I ate exclusively) which had several stations and things ranging from beef and barley soup to reubens to lobster (yes, good lobster for $5); the quick serve restaurant (order at one counter, pick up at the other), and a sit down restaurant that you could have wine at, with servers and the whole nine yards (you had to make a reservation...yes, for $5). The Kendall faculty was nice enough (once we learned the no hats in the cafeteria rule), and the students were friendly. Many conversations were started based on our name tags and that we were brewers. As a Siebel student, we also got discounts at some local establishments (20% off at goose island, 10% off at haymarket and some hotdog place).
The most fun part was the bier stube, which was the free (well, you paid a **** load for it) beer on tap and in the fridge just about 15 feet from the classroom door. We would go up and eat lunch, and come back down and have beers, go back to class, sometimes have beers in between classes, and after classes, the teachers would come out and drink with us and we could pretty much ask them about anything. During the school hours we were on a pretty tight schedule, so while discussions and questions were encouraged, we had to keep the class moving, so we could revisit topics and talk specifics after class.
The "books" were 2 inch binders packed to the gills. One for each week. It was kind of intimidating, but once you figured out what worked best for you (some had binders and a spiral, some binders and laptop and spiral, some taking notes in binder, etc) it wasn't too bad. There was one test at the end of the 2 weeks. We definitely had to study, but if you have commercial brewing experience, you have a jump on the game. The last 8 months or so working in a brewery really gave me a good base of knowledge to build upon.
If you are serious about brewing, and want to do it on a commercial scale, for yourself or someone else, I would highly recommend the class.
Hope this helps. feel free to PM me (i don't get on here often though, so email is probably best bet) or email me at motleybrews at gmail dot com if you have any specific questions and i will do my best to answer.
Several people have PMed and emailed me about siebel. Here are some FAQs:
1.
I heard that Siebel was more of a corporation brewing school. Learning how to brew for Budweiser, Coors, etc. I had heard that too, and it did give me a little bit of hesitation. Having attended the Concise Course, and now in the Master Brewer program, the rumor does have some truth to it. Siebel wants to teach you how to become the best brewer you can be. The thing a lot of people fail to realize is that Budweiser, Miller, Coors, etc are THE BEST in the world at what they do. Sure, they aren't "crafty" and taste like piss, but for having facilities all over the country they are consistent and they sell the most. So thats not necessarily a bad thing.
2.
Do the think that it is possible to transfer the information you learned to a small to medium size brewery? Absolutely! While we do talk a lot about big scale breweries and the things that come along with that that you maybe wouldn't have to do in smaller breweries (filtration, packaging, reclaiming water, etc), it all scales. The majority of the people in my class (both Concise course and master brewer) were coming from small (7 barrel) to medium breweries, and even a few brewpubs. The great thing about beer, is that you can create that same batch of homebrew on a 250 gallon scale (7barrels) or 7000 barrels. The processes for getting the end result are pretty much the same at all scales. Some of the people in the concise course had never even brewed beer before, and were looking at starting nano breweries.
3.
Was the pace of teaching fast? For the concise course, yes. They had a lot of information to cover in 2 weeks (on campus). An hour or so was spent on every topic. They have an online course that goes at your own pace, and that takes about 2 months. The master brewer program is going fast, but because we get into more details, it is a lot easier to understand the overall concepts. I will say that there are a few people in my MB program that took the concise course online, and they felt they missed out on some of the things (on campus we had several tastings...sensory and styles).
4.
What was the most difficult course that your class had problems with? In the concise course, the most challenging part was enzymes (beta amylase, alpha amylase, etc). It just went so quick. When we get to that section in the MB program, and actually get to spend time with it, I don't think it will be as difficult. As far as the MB program, its too soon to say.
Overall, I think that Siebel is a great place. I would do it again in a heartbeat, and I honestly wish I had done it sooner (I have been homebrewing about 2.5 years).
I check and respond to email much quicker than i do here. feel free to email me at
[email protected] if you have any other questions.
hope that helps.
Pics:
the books
sensory
beer styles tasting
the bier stube
i was using the binder and an iPad at one point
