NMSBrew: Engineering students prepare for a career brewing beer

It’s not often you see a student crack open a cold one in class.

“This is the place to be if you like beer,” said Dr. David Rockstraw, New Mexico State’s Robert Davis Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering.

On a Thursday afternoon in late October, Dr. Catherine Brewer served her students a pop quiz that had more to do with fermentation than fractions.

“The homework is probably the most fun homework I’ve ever had: to brew my own beer and to taste beers from around the world,” said Steven Bruck, a junior at New Mexico State.

Three years ago, Dr. David Rockstraw said students approached the engineering department with an idea.

“They said, brewing beer is a chemical engineering process; we should be doing it in the laboratory,” he recalled to ABC-7. “I noticed that there was a need for engineers in that particular industry.”

Those students were on to something: In the past 20 years, the number of breweries in the United States has more than quadrupled, according to the Brewers Association.

“It’s grown a lot faster than I thought it would,” said Jerry Grandle, the owner of Spotted Dog in Mesilla.

The co-owner quit his construction job in 2014 to open the brewery with his wife, a former teacher. At the time, Spotted Dog was only the second brewery in Las Cruces. Today, there are seven throughout the city.

Click here to see where the breweries in your neighborhood are located.

“I gave Jerry, my husband, a home brew kit for Christmas, because he liked beer,” said Susan Grandle.

“I don’t like paying for it,” said Jerry, with a chuckle. “I’m cheap.”

In the past four years, Spotted Dog has gone from offering three brews to 16 varieties of locally brewed craft beer.

“I guess we’re tired of Budweiser and Miller and we like these craft beers,” said Jerry Neely, who enjoys a cold brew multiple times a week with his friend, Chuck Gaasland.

It’s not just the recipes that are flowing; the number of breweries is growing in New Mexico, too. According to the Brewers Association, there are 4.4 breweries per capita in New Mexico and 1.3 in Texas.

Beyond business, the Grandles say there is a science behind their success strategy.

“A brewer has to be good at chemistry,” Susan Grandle said.

NMSBrew students learn that chemistry long before they enter the workforce. Each student has to be older than 21 to take the class. They learn how to design a brewery, manage the supply chain and calculate cash flow.

“Just like any other engineering profession, there’s a product at the end of this one,” Dr. Rockstraw said. “It happens to be a popular product that many people understand. Everybody understands beer.”

Whether you call it chemistry or craft, New Mexico state engineering students are learning how to one day turn their beer into bucks.