Category: Journey To Brewmastery

Celebrating Mankato Brewery’s Fourth American Brewers Guild Alumni

July 2016

I, Chris Collins, graduated from the American Brewers Guild’s Intensive Brewing and Engineering program. My home brewery is Mankato Brewery. Since 2010 Mankato Brewery has had an American Brewers Guild alumni as its head brewer. Until now, Mankato has only one graduate working at the brewery. For the first time since opening the brewery it has two graduates working hard at making the highest quality beer we can make. Jacob, in the photo on the right, is my Head brewer and Master. I have served under him for a year and learned a tremendous amount of information. Excited for what’s to come in our future.

Cheers,

Zymologist Chris

Wednesday, January 22nd 2014

I attended college at Minnesota State University, Mankato. In microbiology classes we learned about making beer but never in enough detail or in practice. During this time I lived with several international students. I had mentioned the idea of making beer to a few of them. The German international student laughed and said, “Why would you make bier!? Go to the store for bier.” My friend and roommate from Nepal stated, “I Like beer. Beer is good. Do it.” One of my closest friends, the Australian, said, “Hell yeah, dude. Let’s make beer. None of that weak stuff though.”  Those of you who knew us at the time would know that there was a lot more profanity in that statement. So we began making beer. We decided that a kit would be a good place to start and we picked a beer that we wished we could buy, a saison. It turned out wonderful! We drank it all the weekend it was ready, became elated, and knew that if there was beer like this commercially available it would out sell the large pilsner companies. (You know who) Looking back on this it’s funny because they seem to be commercially available everywhere. We discovered that craft beer was going to be the next big thing right as the boom began. We had a roommate that felt, “uncomfortable” about us making beer, as if it was illegal. (what a loser) I cared so much about making beer we paid him a few months rent and told him to get lost. My Aussie friend and I used to, and continue to do so, talk about starting a brewery called ‘Bushfire Brewing Company’

Friday, June 3rd 2011

It was 5 days away from my 21st birthday. My brother, his friends, and myself went on a trip to celebrate the life of my brother’s father. He is actually my half brother by blood, but he is 100% my brother. His dad, like my brother, is very intelligent with a photographic memory. To put this in perspective, my brother, is a well respected neurosurgeon. On our way to a small bar, one that my brother’s dad frequented, we toured Ireland. It was my first time traveling abroad. It was also my first time ever legally indulging in fermented beverages. I had no idea that the events on this trip would have profoundly impacted the direction of my career. We visited Old Bushmills Distillery and the Guinness Brewery. The brewery tour is the most prominent early life beer-memory I have. The tour lacked personal flare, now something I always add when giving a tour, but had a vast amount of information beautifully presented on screens. Before this moment I never thought about the complexities, the science, and the joy that is involved in fermentation science. Thanks bro!

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