The title for the course is a bit of mouthful isn't it? Much like a chewy stout or a bombastic porter.
Personally, I find it a bit gutsy to say that each of the 26 of us in the inaugural class is going to erupt out of the course as full-fledged, bonafide Brewmasters. Brewers - Sure! BrewMasters? I reserve my judgement but of course have high hopes.
Where do I begin talking about this course? Let's talk location, location, location, shall we?
Geography:
I'm proud to say our class is a true coast-to-coast representation of Canada. We have people from the East Coast; like Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and even P.E.I. Some lads out from the Prairies, local boys from Calgary, a gal from Edmonton, and a handful of us, like myself, from British Columbia.
You might be thinking - no one from Quebec? All I can say is: Je ne sais pas.
For those of you that don't know where Olds is located, it's about 1 hour North of Calgary in Alberta.
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Another thing
about the town of Olds is that you can’t turn a corner without smacking into a liquor store around here. And the prices are cheap; much better than BC by far. (Disclaimer: I better be careful or the BCLDB will hunt me down out here.) You’d be surprised as to how many would be willing to order in product for you.
They must like their booze out here and I'm okay with that.
A couple of the guys from my class work in a couple of the liquor stores in Olds. I say that's good representation for the craft beer scene.
The college and brewery are a mere 15 minute or so walk from where I live. Before registration day I got to look through the windows to have a peek. This really just transmits into getting my nose and handprints all over the windows to almost the point of drooling.
I know I was pretty excited when I walked up to the intersection where the college is located and saw this from afar:
Now in subsequent posts I'll do my utmost to put in more pictures but this guy has to get prepped for a trip to Yakima, Washington. It's a class trip where we'll learn about the wonderful way of hops from the region and establishments such as HopUnion. I'm still overwhelmed by the schedule so I better go get things organized.
Thanks for reading,
Jason Armitage
(aka The BeerLearner)
