American Brewers Guild 610 U.S. 7, Middlebury, VT 05753

"I attended ABG in 2020 for the IBS&E course. The course is extremely well put together and the instructors are very reputable members of the brewing industry with lots of great information to offer. Steve has done an excellent job at providing a great program that is helpful in both Brewing science theory and practical brewing at a very affordable price. I attended in the midst of Covid so our residential week was delayed, and I was unable to attend the rescheduled week due to starting a new job (at a brewery) but was able to go to Drop In Brewing and see the brewery on a trip to VT. The brewery and beer are both great examples of what a brewery should be like. I highly recommend attending ABG if you want to jump into the brewing industry"

"I attended the American Brewers Guild in June to late November 2019. I was in the IBS&E program which was about five months of distance learning in addition to a residential week in Vermont. I did a lot of research on which brewing school I wanted to attend, I live in California very close to the Davis program but I spoke with some graduates of the Davis program that didn’t particularly think it was worth the money. So I opted for the American Brewers Guild and was accepted in the spring of 2019. The distance learning portion of the program is composed of recorded lectures that run for about... eh 120 hours of lectures spread out over five months. Overall with reading included, lectures, handouts, and ungraded weekly quizzes I probably spent about 10 hours a week on each module. There are two test you take at home and a final you take in Vermont. The two at home test are lengthy and comprehensive. Steve Parkes, the Guild president told us he intended on them taking approximately 24 complete hours to finish. You get over a week to complete them and they are open book. They are difficult. You can not google the answers, they are too conceptual of questions. But they are definitely do-able if you actually do the lectures and have experience in homebrewing. The final week of residency in Vermont is what really makes the program. You get to spend the week with really well known industry experts who have worked for ABI, Lost Abbey, Sierra Nevada, Harpoon, Otter Creek, etc. The primary focus of this week is to give you hands on practical experience not just in general brewing but also intensive use of QA/QC measures, practices, and equipment. You will have fun. Your head may want to pop from the massive influx of information, but you will enjoy it. The final is usually, as of 2019, a three hour test taken on site. You are given a diploma and more beer than you can dream of. Steve and Christine are great people to be around. Extremely down to earth and funny. Very intelligent and the company they keep is the same. Their brewery is a prime example of what a good industry standard should look like, as opposed to most smaller scale breweries. Overall, I very much enjoyed it. If you are considering a brewing school, do consider ABG."