Michigan State University’s Distilling Program Revived A Respected Beverage Education Program Carries on After the Loss of its Founder Written by NICOLE SHRINER, PH.D.
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ichigan State University was founded in 1855 as the Michigan Agricultural College, so making value-added commodities with agriculture products such as spirits just makes sense for the university. However, it has not come without tribulations. The Artisan Distilling Program began in 2012 under Dr. Kris Berglund, known as the ‘godfather of Michigan’s distilling industry’ for his efforts in legislative advancement, distillation workshops, and a production facility called Red Cedar Spirits which helped
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many craft distilleries in Michigan get started. For six years, Dr. Berglund taught three courses which completed a Concentration in Beverage Science and Technology. In 2015, with the addition of prerequisite foundational classes, the concentration was changed to a Minor in Fermented Beverage Science and Technology. Dr. Berglund also trained graduate students from the Food Science and Chemical Engineering departments. Dr. Berglund’s distilling students studied various areas as diverse as aging whiskey in non-standard volume barrels, butyric acid production from renewable resources, distilled alcoholic beverage production using reactive distillation techniques, and cyclic distillation techniques for energy conservation in spirit production. Sadly, in December 2018, Dr. Berglund
passed away, putting the program into question from the higher-ups at MSU. Call it coincidence or call it fate, one of Dr. Berglund’s last graduate students who graduated the morning of his passing, stepped up to take over the program. That student happened to be me. Since then, I have done my best to bring renewed energy to the program through increased course and laboratory work as well as a refreshed outlook via a six-month stint in Germany, where I became a brewmaster at Doemens Academy. We have also worked to create strong relationships with stakeholders such as Atwater Brewery, which generously endowed $50,000 to MSU to advance diversity in the craft beer industry. This scholarship is now available to any student wishing to pursue a career in Fermented
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