ECTS credits for brewing beer

3 female Students standing around a brew kettle.
Brewing beer at the FAU. (Image: FAU/Harald Sippel)

At FAU, students can gain ECTS credits for brewing beer: Various types of craft beer ranging from pale ale to Weizenbock are produced at the “Röthelheimbräu” brewery at the Chair of Bioprocess Engineering. Brewing beer also allows students to gain an insight into the wide range of areas of application for bioprocess engineering. And the best thing is that beer lovers outside the teaching brewery now also have the chance to sample the inventive beer creations.

If you notice the typical brewery smell wafting from the hall in the Röthelheimpark in Paul-Gordan Straße, you can be sure that students have already spent a day dedicated to beer. Weighing and milling malt, mashing, cleaning and disinfecting the brewing barrels: These are only some of the processes that students have focused on since eight o’clock in the morning. In the Chair’s own brewery, the “Röthelheimbräu”, students experience the whole brewing process at first hand – from the choice of raw materials to the boiling process to fermentation.

Boiling the hops is one of the final processes in the day spent brewing, the highlight of the vastly popular and unusual laboratory course in the specialization in bioprocess engineering. The final step involves adding yeast to start fermentation. The young beer is then ready and just needs time to mature. Before the 200 liters of beer can finally be bottled and flow down thirsty throats, the budding chemical and biological engineers have to monitor how the beer progresses.

A complex process

A female student is lifting the lid of the brewing kettle and looking inside.
A critical look into the brewing kettle. (Image: FAU/Harald Sippel)

They measure alcohol and sugar content, and determine bitterness units. Analysis is also part of the practical course in brewing that they can take as part of their studies at the Chair of Bioprocessing Engineering. Brewing beer together is more than just fun. Focusing on one of the oldest biotechnology processes gives students a comprehensive insight into the many different potential areas of application for bioprocess engineering.

“Brewing beer is a complex biological-chemical process that is perfectly suited to teaching students all about biochemical processes and the various steps involved in process engineering,” underlines Prof. Dr. Kathrin Castiglione who has been the head of the Chair of Bioprocess Engineering (Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering), including the Chair’s own brewery, since 2018. “The brewing process is the perfect combination of a number of fundamental elements of a degree in chemical and biological engineering. The module also includes a foundation seminar giving an introduction to the theory of brewing beer.”

The students are accompanied by a dedicated team of doctoral candidates led by Marco Dürsch and Luisa Kober, both of whom take a scientific approach to the positive effects of hops in their doctoral theses. The focus in the teaching brewery is slightly different. The members of the brewery working group enthusiastically experiment with unusual types of hops and also act as ambassadors for handmade craft beer with their imaginative beer creations. Their motto: “We brew whatever we are in the mood for.”

How is beer brewed? A brief insight

License to sell

No matter whether they are classics, like the FAU anniversary beer “Helles Köpfchen” (bright spark), wheat beers and bock beers, porter beers or various ales – the important thing is that they each have their own distinctive character. And now and again they deviate from the German beer purity law during the brewing process. For instance, the usual hops, malt, yeast and water are joined by espresso extract or orange peel for a special winter beer. The inventive beer creations are now available for sampling to beer lovers outside the brewing working group.

Brewing kettle labeled "Pale Ale".
A wide range of beers are brewed at FAU. (Image: FAU/Harald Sippel)

Thanks to Prof. Dr. Kathrin Castiglione, the “Röthelheimbräu” brewery that was founded in 2009 has been licensed to sell bottles and barrels of beer to people not involved in the brewing process since 2023. The quality of the beer brewed by the students has already been sampled by guests at departmental summer parties or Christmas parties, at weddings or at doctoral celebrations. The “Röthelheimbräu” with its specialties is also a welcome guest during the traditional Martinibock celebrations in Erlangen. In addition, visitors to the Long Night of Sciences can look forward to a sample in future.

The brewery team is following on a tradition of the city of Erlangen. When FAU was established as a university in Erlangen, it was granted a special academic right: Professors were permitted to produce beer tax-free for their own consumption. This was carried out by a brewmaster from Erlangen until the special academic rights expired in 1814, and he was granted “university citizenship” in recognition of his efforts.

Further information:

Prof. Dr. Kathrin Castiglione
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Chair of Bioprocess Engineering
Phone: +49 9131 85 23003
kathrin.castiglione@fau.de