After establishing a craft brewing internship through the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, 3 Daughters Brewing in St. Pete is laying the groundwork for the pilot USFSP Brewing Arts Program, set to launch in fall.
According to Frank Biafora, dean of the college of arts and sciences, the six-month program — which will grant students USFSP-issued certificates of completion rather than degrees — is the first of its kind in Florida. The courses will discuss everything from the technology and science of brewing to its art and business aspects, including perspectives from distribution companies and brewery owners.
“I’m thrilled about it because it’s one of those things that matches so well with our community,” Biafora says.
3 Daughters began taking on interns before opening its production facility and tasting room doors in December 2013. Co-founder Leigh Harting tells CL it’s a “highly successful program with different levels of interns every semester.” Green Bench Brewing Co. and Cigar City Brewing also offer the opportunity, and 3 Daughters has introduced seven interns to its lab so far. They run IBU tests (which measure beer’s bitterness), count yeast cells and handle quality assurance, and two were offered jobs at breweries afterward.
To launch the internship, brewery lab director Jim Leonard and USFSP biology instructor David John connected with 3 Daughters through Biafora. Now the brewery’s kicking its partnership up a notch, appealing to homebrewers and others interested in exploring the beer world.
“It’s a follow-up step to the internship,” Leonard says.
Craft beer’s impact on the Sunshine State is hard to miss. In 2014, the University of Florida published a study on the industry’s increasing economic contributions around the state; Florida ranked No. 5 in the country for the amount of breweries opened that year. As 3 Daughters plans to break ground on a 12,000-square-foot warehouse next door to its current facility in June, allowing for 60,000 more barrels, its new pilot program with USFSP speaks to the industry’s potential for growth.
Alongside 3 Daughters, six additional breweries, including Barley Mow, St. Pete Brewing, Green Bench and Florida Avenue, will be involved in the program, as will university faculty. Harting says 3 Daughters is writing courses, filming modules and recruiting Bay area brewers to help develop the program, made up of 10 online training classes and a hands-on portion at a brewhouse, where students will complete a monthlong internship.
As a prerequisite, students will need to obtain one college-level course in basic math or chemistry from an accredited institution, and pay a one-time enrollment fee. Each class will accommodate 20 students, and when graduation comes along, they’ll brew their own beer for a taste test that crowns the best batch.
“We’re doing all of the digging,” Harting says. “Basically writing the curriculum.”
There are half a dozen programs like this around the country, according to 3 Daughters Chief Operating Officer John Erik Savitsky, and dozens more are in the works. If the program’s a hit, Biafora envisions people throughout the country taking the learning modules online, and then interning at neighborhood breweries.
“We anticipate it could grow on a national level,” he says.
This article appears in May 7-13, 2015.