Palate Partners introduces beer certification classes
Deb Mortillaro and her team of instructors at Palate Partners School of Wine and Spirits in Lawrenceville have offered an opportunity to delve deeper into wine and spirits since 1995.
Its 12-year-old partnership with the Wine, Spirits and Education Trust allows eager beverage lovers to dig into the subject even deeper with its multi-tiered certification program.
Missing from the mix, however, was beer. Until now.
Starting in April, Palate Partners will offer a WSETapproved beer curriculum. It’ll be one of the first schools in the country to have it.
“They put it out to a select few schools to see if we were interested in doing this,” Mortillaro says. “The course isn’t about making you a brewer. It’s about how to appreciate beer.”
The Level One course ($349) is an overview of beer appreciation designed for novices who might not yet know the difference between a pilsner and a pale ale. It’ll cover the process of brewing beer, what to appreciate in taste and aroma and how to pair beer with food.
It’ll finish with a 30-question final exam.
Level Two ($769) takes the subject deeper. Over four 5-hour sessions, students will get to learn how to look for the nuances between similar styles and delve more deeply into the diversity of brewing. This course concludes with a 50question exam.
There will be sampling throughout. Palate Partners plans to use as much Pittsburgh-brewed beer as it can.
“They (WSET) are very comprehensive about what their expectations for samples are,” Mortillaro says. “We have enough products in Pittsburgh to have a good sampling.”
Mortillaro might be among the most decorated WSET educators in the country in terms of wine, spirits and sake. Beer, however, is a different story.
“I don’t know anything about beer at all. Really, nothing,” she says. “So I went out and found someone who knows how to make beer and spends a lot of time with beer.”
She turned to Caiti Sullivan, co-founder and brewer of Lawrenceville’s Coven Brewing. Sullivan has more than a decade of production experience and is currently pursuing a judging certification though the Beer Judge Certification Program.
“Caiti is incredible. She knows way beyond what’s in the book,” Mortillaro says, noting the first class already has one student enrolled.
Registration is open on the Palate Partners website, palatepartners.com. Prices include all books, exams and samples.
“I’m student number one,” Mortillaro says. “It’s time to learn something about beer.”