For a career that involves as much cleaning, heavy lifting, long hours, and poor pay as professional brewing, few jobs are as glamorized. But, as almost any professional brewer would agree, there’s no better industry to be in, and hardly any job is more satisfying than making beer. To find out what it really takes to break into the industry or open a brewery, Heather Vandenengel spoke to five professionals about how they translated passion into a career.
Cody Morris
Founder, Head Brewer
Epic Ales
Seattle, Washington
When Cody Morris (pictured at top) couldn’t find a brewing job in Seattle, he took a different route—and found inspiration along the way. After graduating from college with a philosophy degree, Morris took a job at a homebrew shop, The Cellar Homebrew in Seattle, and found work on the retail side in the wine industry, where he fell in love with the idea of small-scale, specialized wine producers.