“Crap. I’m getting ready to graduate with a degree in physiology,” said NoDa Brewing Company’s Brewmaster Chad Henderson, just before finishing his exercise physiology degree at Appalachian State University. He’d become infatuated with homebrewing toward the end of his college career and couldn’t think about doing much else. He didn’t have the resources to go to brewing school, though, so he worked in medical equipment sales by day and homebrewed religiously by night.
When he finally did pursue professional brewing, it turned out that his physiology degree worked well for the craft brewer—especially one who expanded from a 15-barrel brewhouse to a 60-barrel brewhouse, and from one location to two, in five short years.
“My science background has helped me understand processes that I practice every day at NoDa,” Henderson says. “Physiology is based on how a bunch of small parts work together. That has helped me actualize the anatomy of the brewhouse.”