Girl shows how to brew beer for science project
12-year-old interviewed brewer, demonstrated process for class
The other sixth-graders chose projects about brain function or the difference between goat’s milk and cow’s milk for the class’ High Interest Scientific Study assignment.
Lyn Sepersky wanted to research the science of brewing beer — because it’s Wisconsin.
“And I had gone on brewery tours before,” said Lyn, a student at D.C. Everest Middle School in Schofield, near Wausau.
Of the project’s required components, the one that interested Lyn the most was interviewing a live resource.
Enter Andrew Gierczak, co-founder and head of brewery operations of MobCraft Brewing in Milwaukee.
Matt Sepersky, Lyn’s father, is a beer fan who had heard Gierczak speak about beer science and quality control. He asked if Gierczak could spend some time explaining the brewing process to an 11-year-old (Lyn has since turned 12).
“My response was ‘Oh, hell yes,’” Gierczak said, then apologized to Lyn for his language. “I love to educate on how much goes into the process and getting people interested in food science.”
The self-possessed preteen had been on plenty of brewery tours with her family, which includes two sisters, most recently at Central Waters in Amherst. She still did research.
“I studied to be knowledgeable on the subject,” she said, which translated to pages of questions to which she wanted answers.
For an hour and a half, she interrogated Gierczak about how brewing worked.
They talked about barley. They talked about flavors and reactions in the process. They discussed yeast, hops, malt and the chemical analysis of beer as molecular biology.
“I learned that brewing was mostly about biology and not chemistry,” Lyn said. “Mind blown.”
Despite their time together, it wasn’t until they met again, this time for a reporter, that Gierczak and Lyn bonded over personal similarities.
Gierczak was only slightly older than Lyn when he started making kombucha, his gateway to fermentation studies.
Each revealed they were a twin. Lyn’s sister, Ava, is her fraternal twin. Gierczak has an identical one.
The brewing project wasn’t a hard sell in class — although Lyn was prepared to defend it as the perfect way to learn more about Wisconsin. No worries.
“She was pretty excited. No one had ever done this,” Lyn said.
Lyn turned in a book she created about brewing and demonstrated the process in front of the class using barley, an illustration of a hop that she drew and two clear water bottles to simulate brewhouse tanks. She used sugar as a stand-in for yeast.
“I basically went through the process and added and removed ingredients as necessary,” Lyn said. “I felt it was pretty educational. I was the first to do this project, and it was fun to actually learn more about a subject I thought I knew about.”
Lyn is the kind of student that the Pink Boots Society, a national group created to assist, inspire and encourage women beer industry professionals, hopes will continue in the field.
“The fact that she even knew about the fermentation sciences and did not feel it was taboo or an all-boys field and that it was a field of study she could be a part of is everything that the Pink Boots Society and I have been working toward — a normalization of fermentation sciences for young women and girls,” said Jamie M. Baertsch, head brewer at Moosejaw Pizza and Dells Brewing Co. in Wisconsin Dells.
Becoming a brewer has long been on Lyn’s short list of career choices, behind author but ahead of lawyer and orthodontist.
Until now.
“‘Brewer’ is pretty high on the list now,” she said.