Lawrence Brewers Guild

I'm in the process of applying for a QA/QC position at a brewery in MN and I've run into a little snafu: I don't actually know what QA/QC in a brewery looks like. I think I'm well qualified for the lab manager part of it but I've just never done any quality-type work (other than sampling my own stuff for quality...repeatedly).

Is there any experience here in that kind of work? If so, would they be willing to talk to me about what I could reasonably expect/buzzwords/processes?

Allen,
My experience is much the same as yours, sampling my own and others beers, over and over and over..., I would recommend that you talk to the brewers at FSB, they are always very helpful when I ask them questions about brewing and I am sure that someone over there could help you out.
Joe

Based on my own personal research into the brewing industry.

Depending on the size of the brewing and if they produce their own yeast would need to make sure yeast stocks are high quality. Maintain the "reference samples" without "cross contamination" with each other.

Take and process "biological" samples from around the production facility to identify the presences of any "unwanted" microorganisms that foul up the final product.

Quality spot check different areas of production such: grain stats (moister content, potential yield...), track vial stats (DO levels, SGs, FGs...), track mass spectrometry results, track water profiles....

Just a few quick thoughts.

You'll probably want to take a printout of this troubleshooting guide to your interview:

Very helpful, Kev. Thanks!

Well, I could have posted a serious reply with the little bit that I know about statistical process control, which would basically be a list of acronyms I've heard of. But I'm guessing your lab skillz already include more of that than I've ever heard of. So I defaulted to smart-ass mode.

I do know a guy who is an Industrial Engineer with over 10 years of experience in QA/QC. None of that time has been with a brewery, but some of his experience might be halfway applicable. At the very least, he should have some insight into buzzwords to expect. I could probably arrange a sit-down with him, if you'd like.

A word of caution: he doesn't always drink beer, but when he does, he prefers Coors Light.

That alone invalidates most of his opinions.

Careful now. This guy is a 6-sigma black belt.

I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with Karate, but I'm not going to take a chance by insulting his beer of choice.

I prefer TQM Knights .....

oh quality puns...