Colorado State University’s Ramskeller Brewhouse is entering five beers into competition at the Great American Beer Festival Sept. 21-23 in Denver.
The brewery inside CSU’s Lory Student Center crafted its most-ever yearly entries in part due to the Fermentation Science and Technology Program hiring graduate KC Lyons (’22).
“I was working as the Fermentation Science lead intern in my senior year when the FST team approached me and told me that they were thinking of hiring a full-time brewer to ramp up production and assist the leadership in normal operation,” Lyons said.
Fermentation science and technology, a major in CSU’s Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, teaches students the science behind food and beverage fermentation. The program has multiple lab spaces in the Gifford Building in addition to the Lory Student Center’s Ramskeller Brewhouse.
“The value that the students get upon graduation from their hands-on experiences is extremely useful in any industry and, simply put, it just gets the students jobs,” Lyons said. “I loved my time as a student and am happy that I get to help the program as faculty.”
Competition portfolio
Four brews are entered into the regular contest, and one is in the Pro-Am competition. The four standard entries are:
- CAM’s Tropical Vacation, a Tropical Hefeweizen, entered in the “Fruit Wheat Beer” category.
- Fungal Overlord, a Belgian Pale Ale, entered in the “Other Belgian-Style Ale or French-Style Ale” category.
- FoCoBoHo Pilsener, a Czech Pilsener, entered in the “Bohemian-Style Pilsener” category.
- FeSTivFall Vienna Lager entered in the “Vienna-Style Lager” category.
The Pro-Am beer is CAM’s Pro-Am Gold, a German Kolsch, brewed in collaboration with local award-winning homebrewer Terry Fast, based on Fast’s recipe and professionally scaled up for production. Contest results will be announced Sept. 23.
“All of these beers were crafted by me, our assistant brewer KC, and students in the FST program,” said Jeff Biegert, the New Belgium Brewing-sponsored FST instructor and brewmaster. “We submitted this many entries because we think these beers are excellent examples of the style categories.”