Student brews take centre stage
Beer showcase set for Market Square today
Niagara College students will be going public with their pints at a student-organized craft beer festival today.
In the second instalment of Project Brew, the final project for Niagara College brewmaster and brewery operations students, St. Catharines Market Square will be taken over by 17 students showcasing their craft beer creations.
They will serve student-crafted beers including Bohemian pilsner, Belgian tripel, wheat IPA, kolsh, saison, rye, lager, wheat wine, malt liquor and oatmeal stout.
All of the students are enrolled in the brewmaster program.
They are not only creating the 17 craft beers that will be available, they’re creating the event themselves.
“We are hosting, as our class project for marketing sales and promotions,” said Lucas Goerzen, a second-year brewmaster student. “At the event, we are featuring our beers that we do for our practical brewing course.
“It’s just for the graduating class. We each had to brew and design our own beer and then we are presenting those at the event.”
Said Mike Hueftlein, a secondyear student: “We pitched two ideas to our teacher.
“One idea was to have a speakeasy at Benchmark and just invite industry friends that we could promote our beer to the industry to help us gain traction.
“And the second idea was to have a beer festival in market square, which seemed more fun. It’s more out in the open. The public could come in and try your beer.”
He added that by opening it to the public, visitors can “give you feedback right away of what the public actually wants to drink, as opposed to just people in the industry who sometimes want more different and sometimes very specific types of beer.”
The public can come out for the beer, live music and food vendors from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Tickets cost $20 in advance and $25 at the door. The price includes a branded glass and five drink tickets.
Additional drink tickets can be purchased for $2 each. Tickets can be bought ahead of time at www. eventbrite.com, search Project Brew.
“We are hoping for 550 people to show up,” Hueftlein said. “There is a limited number of tickets because we can’t let more than 550 people in.”
It’s all part of the learning process for the students — not just brewing, but organizing the festival to offer their creations.
“Learning how to set up a beer festival and knowing how to set up an event like this, knowing what licences you need, and what regulations you need to follow,” said Goerzen.
“It’s great for us because it’s a chance for us to see the other side of a beer festival. Instead of just being a brewery that is attending the festival, we get to see what it takes to get something like this up and running.”
Project Brew will see a reboot three times a year, one for each term that will be graduating.
Each rendition will be different. Different beer, different venue, different ideas, different students.
“It is going to be hosted and designed by the class that is graduating that semester,” said Goerzen. “Our own beer, from scratch. We design the recipe, do all the calculations to make sure we hit certain targets during the process.”
Beer to take home cannot be purchased at the event, but a small amount of the student creations will be available for sale at the college.
“We made 100-litre batches each and part of that will be going to the event and the rest of that is for sale through the brewery here.” Donations for the college’s student administrative council food bank will be collected at the door.