Olds College Teaching Brewery students are going nuts after one of their brews created using hand-roasted pecans was voted the 2014 rookie of the year beer at the Calgary International Beer Festival.The beer is called #10 Browning Street as a play on the title of the residence of the British prime minister and was created in partnership with Alberta Beer Festivals in celebration of the organization's 10th anniversary.“This Northern English style Brown Ale features a unique trait, oven roasted pecans, which gave the brew a hint of nuttiness, in addition to the medium hop presence and layers of malt character,” a college media release states.Jordan Ramey, professor of brewing sciences at the college, said the beer was born out of the extracurricular pursuits of teaching brewery student Jeff Grandy.“Jeff wanted to produce a nut-based beer and he said ‘I'm looking at pecans, I'm looking at almonds, I'm looking at all these different things, I'm thinking of making a brown ale and I want to do something with nuts',” Ramey said.He added he encouraged Grandy to go ahead with the project and while Grandy was in the planning stages, Alberta Beer Festivals approached Ramey and told him they want the teaching brewery to produce the organization's 10th anniversary beer.Ramey said the organization wanted something “off the beaten track” that will appeal to the average beer drinker and the “beer geek” crowd.“They said, ‘Do whatever you like with it, go nuts.' And I said, nuts. That's it. I've got a student making a nut beer, let's make a nut beer for you guys because we've never done a nut beer before.”The final product came together as a result of “student passion and inquisitiveness coming into contact with faculty helpfulness and expertise” with nearly everyone involved with the teaching brewery helping out, Ramey said.“So what started as an outside extracurricular project blossomed into this crazy nutty idea and it's one of those that just worked.”College students were at the Calgary festival on May 2 and 3 handing out samples of #10 Browning Street and other beers that have come out of the teaching brewery since it opened last fall.Ramey said everyone involved with the program was “over the moon” when they learned #10 Browning Street was named rookie of the year, especially since the teaching brewery only began selling its beers in December.“To win an award right out of the gate, especially with students brewing our beer and being a teaching brewery, I really think says something about the quality of the students that we have in our program and the quality of the faculty and the education we've been able to provide them in a short period of time,” he [email protected]
