 
Ever wonder what it takes to get so many
varieties of beer and ale?
There's a lot of chemistry involved. Let's go behind
the scenes and meet the person in charge:
the brew master.
Hi, I'm Viviana. 
 
Hi. Nice to meet you.
Thanks. Show me around? 
 
Sure will.
My name is Gord Demaniuk. I'm the brew master at Fernie Brewing Company in Fernie, B.C.
The brew master really is responsible for the creation
and the execution, the development of procedures
and the quality of all the products that our
brewery produces, so it entails a bit of science, a bit
of creativity, uh, when it comes to developing recipes,
and, uh, and also a bit of mechanics when it comes to
maintaining the equipment. It's a very fascinating job.
When I start my day, I'll talk to each of the employees,
you know, and find out how the day has gone for them.
Um, I'll perhaps sample the package beers
that, that we produced that day.
I'll go around and talk to the other brewer, find
out how his day has gone, how his batch went.
I'll check our fermentation batches
and make sure everything is good there.
If I'm doing a brew, the first step
is our mashing procedure.
During the mashing process, we're ensuring that the grains are well wedded and that, uh, by stirring,
we're not creating any hot spots, that 
the temperature is very consistent so
that the starch gets converted into sugars very properly.
Oh, so you really have to be physical to do what you do.
We do our watering, where we're transferring the
unfermented beer, called wort, over to the
brew kettle, to our kettle boil, add our hops
or any other spices that we might be 
using, using at that stage. Um,
do my cool in, clean everything up, and, uh, away I go.
Making beer is such a dynamic thing.
You really have to have your finger on, 
on the pulse of the brewery.
I once heard this saying from 
someone I worked with years ago:
there's no secret to making great beer,
just meticulous attention to detail.
How did you get started in this industry?
I started as a summer student, working for
a brewery in Saskatoon, while I was going to university.
I just started on the packaging line.
After I graduated, they needed somebody for the lab
and I was...must have impressed a few people
or something, and I got called, and the rest is history.
Making beer does require that certain tasks
are performed meticulously on time.
There's no shortcuts in making a good craft beer.
We do work two shifts here. I tend to alternate
between day shift and an afternoon shift.
Typically, a batch of beer will take us about
approximately eight hours to brew from start to finish.
Currently our brewery is doing two brews a day.
Doing a new recipe and that is very 
satisfying and challenging.
That's one of the things with my level of experience:
I have a pretty strong foundation in
knowing what the end result will be.
It's always exciting to see a new, new brand launched.
The two paths would be to go ahead and get a
university education that's primarily in
science or say, food engineering or something like that.
It's important that you do know a bit about chemistry and microbiology, mainly, or biology.
That's very important foundation 
for future brew master training.
And then take specific brewing training.
The other path would be to join a brewery right out
of high school and get some on-the-job training
and take some courses online or, or by correspondence.
As a brew master, there is always that opportunity
of starting your own business, 
you starting your own brewery.
And, certainly, with the right combination of partners,
I've seen a lot of people doing that.
I would suggest going to your local brewery or
going to a few local breweries, spend some time talking
to the brew master or one of the other brewers.
I think the most rewarding part of the job is actually just
in seeing people enjoying your beer and creative aspect
of creating new recipes and new, new brands.
Well, Gord, thank you so much.
I had no idea your job was so complex.
Well, thanks so much for coming by. 
It's been my pleasure.
Once again, this is Career Trek and I'm Viviana,
reminding you that this career could be yours.
We'll see you next time.
 
