24 OregonStater.org PHOTOS BY KARL MAASDAM, ’93 R E S E AR C H HOW TO ENGINEER THE PERFECT PINT A 30-year partnership turns science into suds (and careers). BY > MOLLY ROSBACH For the past 30 years, chemical engineering students have been visiting the OSU Research Brewery to experience practical applications of what they study in class. The collaboration between engineering and the pilot brewery not only helps bring theoretical concepts to life, but also teaches students about the chemical engineering careers they could pursue in the field of food science. “Being able to show students what’s possible — it’s a little different from hearing a lecture about those things. They actually get to see it in use, without having to leave campus,” said Jeff Clawson, ’88, M.S. ’94, brewery pilot plant manager in the College of Agricultural Science’s Department of Food Science and Technology. The informal partnership began around 1995 with Clawson and Skip Rochefort, associate professor of chemical engineering. Rochefort brought some seniors to the fledgling pilot brewery — which at the time comprised a small system of steam kettles cobbled together with dairy equipment — to do a brewing experiment. A few years later, he helped design a heat exchanger when the brewery expanded to include five new fermenters. Class tours of the brewery grew and continued through the craft brewing boom of the 2010s, and when the facility went fully automatic in 2018, students gained the opportunity to learn about the modern equipment used by most major regional breweries. “It’s just tremendous — beautiful and automated and really a chemical ↑ Pilot plant manager Jeff Clawson today and (below) about 30 years ago, when the fledgling OSU Research Brewery got its start.
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