Well, where the heck do I start.....
I'm currently enrolled in the Niagara College Brewmaster and Brewery Operations Management program. I've decided to start up this blog to provide an inside look as to the goings on in both the program and the Ontario beer scene in general. By no means am I a professional writer or blogger, but I hope to offer a unique and interesting perspective as I progress through the inaugural class of this brand spanking new course.
5 years ago I graduated from Brock University with a bachelors of accounting and went on to obtain my Chartered Accountant designation. Since graduating I've worked in public accounting performing financial statement audits (and having my time billed out at $165 an hour!), and more recently have spent 3 years in internal audit at both a mutual fund company and at a major Canadian retailer. During my short time spent in the corporate world I learned to absolutely loathe sitting at a desk for hours on end, wearing dress clothes and generally performing work that I was neither interested in nor passionate about. I've tried to imagine my career progression and I am just not interested in working as an audit manager/director, putting in 50+ hours per week and generally being stressed out...... even if they make $100K, it's just not worth it for me.
Given all this however, I do not regret the path that I took. Obtaining my CA has been both challenging and rewarding, and I highly recommend it to anybody interested in the profession.
I first heard about the brewmaster program in June 2009 while browsing the internet at my boring job. I immediately thought it was awesome and for the remainder of the day wondered where I would build my new brewery, what styles of beer I would make and how much money Molsons/Labatt would offer to buy me out when I started to eat some of their market share (I've always been a bit of a day dreamer).
So now, here I am in my first week of school joining 23 other people whose family and friends must think they are nutcases. So far we look to be a pretty diverse group with a range of backgrounds (mechanical engineer, oil rig worker, forestry, chemistry grad) and are coming from all across Canada and even a few from the US.
I'm hoping to update the blog on a fairly regular basis, maybe twice a week. I do have a sensory evaluation of beer course this semester but I don't think I'll bog you down with tasting notes on specific beers, since there are a ton of other sources for that type of information. I have a couple of future blog posts in mind and will also detail some interesting beer learnings as the school year progresses.
Cheers,
Mark
