(208c) Designing a Brewery Engineering Minor within Chemical Engineering to Meet MBAA Specifications

Much has been made about the natural overlap between chemical engineering and brewing: the fluid dynamics, the heat transfer, the fermentation kinetics, etc. Arguments have been made that beer production is a great case study for chemical engineering education and chemical engineers make great brewers. The last decade has seen an expansion of fermentation science/brewing programs, some as standalone programs and some within chemical engineering. Over the last two years, the development process for the Brewery Engineering program minor at NMSU has focused on how to add a minor to the chemical engineering curriculum to give its graduates an advantageous credential for employment in the brewing industry: a degree from a program recognized by the Master Brewers Association of the Americas (MBAA). In this presentation, we describe the design of new courses and selection of existing course to achieve this goal. We also describe our attempt to differentiate from general fermentation science programs by offering a more engineering perspective on design and operation of a brewery.