When the pandemic spiked plans for this term’s edition of the Project Brew beer festival, Brewmaster and Brewery Operations students decided to make the countdown to Christmas a heady affair instead.
The class, set to graduate at the end of this term, opted to produce a beer advent calendar to showcase the suds they made in their final few months of the program.
It was the safest way to get their drinkable projects into the glasses of beer aficionados while still creating a sense of ceremony normally brought about by pouring them in person at Project Brew, explained brewmaster student Thomas Henry.
“It was how can we still make this an event for people at home?” Henry said.
They did it by producing 20 unique brews, 18 of which were made by students individually, and two more as a class. They were packaged with two tasting glasses and Christmas crackers containing keychain bottle openers, then offered for sale online earlier this month.
A new beer is revealed each day and accompanied by a short Facebook video in which students talk about their creations.
Day 1 starts Dec. 12 for the lucky 130 people who purchased one of the festive launches before they sold out. Twelve-packs featuring some of the limited brews have since been released for sale.
“It was absolutely great to see it sold so well,” Henry said. “I’ll be honest, it was a bit of a relief because we didn’t know how it was going to go over with the (Project Brew) event being such a staple.”
Day 18 features Henry’s beer, an amber ale brewed with rye and maple inspired by West Avenue’s Ice Cider. Henry’s ‘Maple and Rye by the Fire’ mimics a barrel-aged ale and “drinks a little like an old-fashioned,” he said.
“It was a labour of love and a lot of hours like it was for my classmates. I’m really excited about the advent calendar just like everyone in class.”
The Brewmaster and Brewery Operations students who produced the beer advent calendar.
Planning for the beer advent calendar started in September in April Tyrell’s Brew Sales and Promotions class.
The lockdown last March cancelled that term’s Project Brew festival. The academic program was suspended in the summer as the pandemic dragged on, keeping Project Brew on hold.
When students returned to school this fall, the decision was made early — and long before most people started thinking about Christmas — to do a virtual event, Tyrell explained.
“We put it to the students how they wanted to go about this and someone said an advent calendar,” she said. “It’s something to do every day. Getting beer is something to look forward to because obviously Project Brew isn’t going to be the same.”
Students worked through the logistics of putting together the advent calendar, which finishes with a champagne lager made by the entire class for New Year’s Eve. They also worked with Broadcasting – Radio, TV and Film (BRTF) students on the marketing piece — the daily videos.
“This is a great new opportunity for us,” said Peter “Dutch” VandenBerg, BRTF program co-ordinator. “We do a lot with (the Canadian Food and Wine Institute) throughout the year but not usually something specific with the beer folks other than Caps, Corks and Forks. This project allowed our third-year group to produce some great, fun content with some of our new equipment. (It was a) great way to end the term.”
The videos of students talking about their beers were shot and edited by a crew of six, with student Sarah Cedeño acting as the producer. Organizing the shoots, liaising with brewmaster students, and providing her own creative input into the project was “like a glimpse into the real world” of broadcast production, she said.
Though the team is still editing some of the videos to be released later this month, Cedeño likes what she’s seen so far.
“I like (the videos) a lot. They’re very classy, very elegant, but also very focused on the students and how they produced the beer,” she said. “I’m very happy with the results, and we had a great crew and that makes things easier.”
