"I get a lot of flack when I tell my friends I'm heading off to beer class," said student Robert Reyes, an aspiring chef who's also taking a wine class.
"But it's a lot more difficult than I ever imagined," Reyes said. "I've realized how you can pair beer and food like you can pair wine and food."
Coors says it's happy to subsidize the education of the next generation of restaurant managers.
"It's exciting for us to work with students who are dedicated to bar and restaurant management," said Rennie Solomito, director of strategy development for Coors. "These students will go on to manage substantial establishments and be responsible for training their own staff."
Students learn the differences between a German lager, a hefeweizen, barley wine and a lambic. And they learn the biology and chemistry behind brewing.
Questions on the next test may include: Hops grow best at what latitude? What are the two main categories of hops? Describe the malting process. The British ales of Burton-upon-Trent are made with hard water - true or false?
On a recent Friday afternoon one female and six male students gathered around a table to distinguish different beer styles and their ingredients by tasting 2-ounce samples from bottles of seven different local and imported beers dispensed by Sandlot brewmasters Tom Hail and John Legnard.
The course manual is clear: "Consumption of beer for purposes other than sensory evaluation will be grounds for immediate dismissal from the program."
Students eyeballed the beer, swirled it, sniffed it and finally tasted it - on the front and back of the tongue. They analyzed the color, clarity, carbonation, aroma, flavor, viscosity and aftertaste.
"We're going to ruin beer drinking for you today," Hail said. "Your friends will think you're odd sniffing your beer before you drink. Hopefully you won't start sniffing your food.
"We could drink 40 beers and not hit all the styles," Hail said. "Some people like fish sticks and some people like sushi."
Then the real fun began: diagnosing the ills of off-flavored beers with symptoms that include skunky, papery, leathery, moldy, even "catty." Students were satisfied to sniff rather than taste.
Next they'll design five beers for their hypothetical brewpub and discuss the marketability of each. But not before a homework assignment. Homework?
"Do a sensory evaluation of your favorite beer or one you've never had," Hail assigned. "But don't do it in a bar. You don't want to be a beer geek."