New Brewing Club comes to KPU
The club is open to all brewing students and is located at the Langley campus
New brewing club coming to KPU's Langley campus for students enrolled in the Brewery program. (Kyler Emerson)
A Brewing Club has been created at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
The new club was approved at the Kwantlen Student Association’s executive meeting on Jan. 20. The club will be based on the Langley campus where the brewing lab is located and aims to engage brewing students in discussions and organize tours to learn more about brewing.
“KPU’s brewing and brewery operations program is the only brewing diploma of its kind in British Columbia [and] the first and only brewing program in Canada recognized by the Master Brewers Association,” reads the program’s website.
Beverly Marshall, a brewery student and club member, says the club hopes to bring the KPU brewery community closer together.
“The program we’re doing is a two year program [compared] to a four year program which has more consistency of people around for a longer time … a two year program is really fast,” Marshall says, adding that a lot of people are in different stages of their education.
Everyone’s in a different place depending what classes students have taken, so they tried to bring a sense of community within the two years by making the club, she says.
The brewery program is based on the Langley campus where KPU has a 4,500 square foot, custom-built brewery for the courses.
Marshall says the club is a way for students in the brewery program to relate to each other. The Brewing Club is a space for students in the program to build better connections with their peers, as well as exchange knowledge about brewing and life experiences in a unique program.
“No one knows exactly what you’re going through, but the people in the program with you can kind of get where you’re coming from and all the things going on at the same time with professors and things you love or things that are hard,” Marshall says.
The club is still in the early planning stages, but Marshall says they want to organize guest speakers from the brewing community and arrange brewery tours for club members to learn more about the process and industry.
Marshall says they are currently considering a malt house in Langley to arrange a tour because some students in the program don’t know about the malting process and would get hands-on experience.
Currently, most first and second year brewing students are part of the club. The club hasn’t set up ways for other students to join yet, but they are working on plans for future events. KPU students can follow the KSA’s Instagram page for updates.
