is a professional training concept that originated with the rise of tradesmen guilds in Europe in the Middle Ages. It is based on what we would now call a polytechnic approach to education. Its principle is learning by doing, which was the only way most people in the Middle Ages could learn anything of substance; the vast majority of people were illiterate, except for a few learned monks. Apprentices started work in the employ of a master, usually at age 10 to 15, who for about 3 to 7 years taught them a trade. The master also provided food and lodging and was sometimes paid for the training he dispensed. In exchange for the privilege of being trained, apprentices had to agree to continue to work for their masters for a fixed period after they had become skilled. Brewery apprentices would learn the nuts and bolts of the profession, but they also did the backbreaking grunt work, such as shoveling the germinating grain on the malt floor, stoking the fires under the malt kiln and the brew kettle, milling the dried grain, carrying brew water from the well to the kettle to be heated for the mash, ladling hot mash in and out of the kettle for decoctions, cropping yeast off the fermenting beer, filling and sealing casks of finished beer, and loading heavy casks into horse-drawn drays for delivery. Finally they would learn how to distinguish between good and bad raw materials, how to manage fermentations at different ambient temperatures, and even how to formulate recipes. Once a master had certified an apprentice’s skills, the new brewer would eventually take his leave to become an itinerant journeyman, working for different brewmasters to further hone his craft. Finally, a journeyman might settle down, become a master himself, run his own brewery, and train his own apprentices… and the training cycle would repeat itself.

The entire system was strictly regulated by guilds, which, for brewers in medieval times, were often combination guilds for both brewers and bakers. Because the European countryside in those days was populated mainly by serfs that were essentially owned by their feudal lords, guilds first sprang up only in the chartered cities with their free burghers. There, the guilds formed oligarchies of competence in otherwise static societies. As a guild member, a person’s station in life might be based on what he could actually do, rather than his family affiliations. Guilds had their origins in primitive Germanic, often religious, brotherhoods. The first documentary mention of guilds dates back to decrees by Emperor Charlemagne (742–814). Medieval guilds promoted the economic welfare of their members by regulating entry into as well as advancement within the profession, setting fixed labor rates, discouraging competition, suppressing unaffiliated labor, and setting quality standards. The guild members, in turn, had to submit to the discipline of the guild rules, which included, importantly, the training system of guild-certified apprentices, journeymen, and masters. By being closed shops, the guilds eventually acquired local monopolies over the making of the products of their trades, and the guild houses became centers of social, economic, and often political power. Eventually, the guilds gave rise to modern trade unions.

Echoes of the old guild apprenticeship system remain in place in Germany. In the modern German system, private employers in combination with public vocational schools now provide strictly formalized 3-year apprenticeship programs, which are supervised no longer by guilds, but by local affiliates of the German chamber of commerce. Apprentices receive practical on-the-job training and a modest pay, financed by authorized employers. Brewer apprentices alternately work in a brewery and study at a vocational brewing school. There is some flexibility regarding the duration of the alternating blocks of work and study, from a week or two to several months. During their apprenticeship, apprentices cannot be dismissed by their training breweries. The apprenticeship period ends with a test; those who pass can call themselves journeymen brewers and seek regular full-time employment or they can enroll in further studies at a school to become certified brewmasters. Only companies with brewmasters or maltmasters on staff who are also government-certified holders of educators’ licenses may participate in apprentice training programs. This polytechnic training regimen functions in parallel to academic brewing education tracks offered by universities. See brewing schools.

By international standards, the German apprenticeship system is perhaps the most regulated path for entry into the brewing profession, whereas practices in North America rank perhaps among the most lenient. It is not uncommon for a craft brewery in the New World, for instance, to employ brewers who learned their craft strictly by trial and error, often as homebrewers or brewery apprentices without formal training. Considering that the German beer culture has not developed a new beer style for almost 100 years, whereas the North American craft brewing scene has become the undisputed leader in global beer style developments, it might be interesting to speculate whether the German apprenticeship is likely to produce brewers most interested in brewing traditional beer styles to perfection, whereas the much looser North American system is more likely to produce brewers more eager to innovate and experiment with new ingredients and processes. Each system and culture appears to retain certain advantages, a fact reflected by a very recent emphasis on creativity in German brewing education, and a new focus on the importance of practical brewery internships in the United States.

See also beer style.