A brewing celebration: Cal Poly Pomona celebrates a decade of its beer program

Campus administrators may cringe when they see the words beer and college next to each other.

But in late 2014 Cal Poly Pomona leaders opened Innovation Brew Works to change the relationship between those two concepts.

In addition to a beer brewing operation, IBW also has an Assistant Brewer Training Program, a seven-week Cal Poly Pomona professional development course that offers a certificate for people who want to enter the brewing economy. The program helps people find jobs in a $117 billion industry.

“This is a college pathway,” said Eric Bassett, production manager at IBW and an instructor for the training program.

Diversifying the brewing industry

There’s a stereotype of the microbrew brewmaster.

“It's a white male with a beard,” Bassett said.

But Innovation Brew Works is helping to change that.

A student in the Innovation Brew Works certificate program at Cal Poly Pomona learns how to use brewing equipment.

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The training program enrolls about six students, who bring their varied backgrounds into their learning.

Kevin Limón took the Cal Poly class in 2019 while finishing his geology-geospatial analysis bachelor’s degree.

“[Growing up] we had a little lemongrass plant and my grandma would always make her little tinctures and teas with it,” he said.

His parents and grandparents were born and raised in Jalisco, Mexico.

Now he works at Highland Park Brewery, where he proposed and made a ginger and lemongrass saison beer as a tribute to that cultural experience.

Other efforts to diversify the brewing industry have come along since Cal Poly Pomona's program began. San Diego State University, for example, offers a Diversity in Craft Beer Award that includes free tuition and a brewing internship.

More Latino-themed breweries have opened in recent years across the country.

“The brewing community was one demographic for so long, but we're starting to break that wheel and get more representation out there,” Limón said.

Making beer as an education pathway

The idea for Innovation Brew Works was crafted by G. Paul Storey in 2012. He’s former executive director of the Cal Poly Pomona Foundation and sought to create a “learn by doing” educational laboratory that included a microbrewery and cafe. The university said Innovation Brew Works is the first brewery-restaurant on a college campus open to the public in the United States.

For some graduates, the training program came after working in very different industries.

Shaun Eozzo grew up in Butler, Pa., where he got an associate’s degree in computer forensics from his local community college.

Eric Bassett, right, teaches the Innovation Brew Works class at the program brewery facility at Cal Poly Pomona.

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“I ended up kind of transitioning to IT consulting for roughly 15 years and kind of went through the ranks in that industry and just kind of found that it wasn't very fulfilling,” he said.

He wanted to find something more hands-on, more creative, he said, something that engaged the senses. He liked the vibe in microbreweries. So he took the course and is now working at Campsite Brewing Company in Covina, Calif.

“When you go there, you feel like you're transported to a campsite,” he said, and that makes him feel like he’s creating a product people enjoy while being connected to the environment and the earth.

“I'm from Japan. I just moved here three years ago,” said Yuki Endo.

She took the course that wrapped up this month. In Japan, she worked in logistics for a shipping company.

“I just decided to move here to go to school, get [a brewing] certificate and start my career as a brewer here,” she said.

Her previous work was not satisfying, she said, and the Innovation Brew Works program’s hands-on approach to learning the craft gave her satisfaction away from a computer and a desk.

Yuki Endo moved from Japan to the U.S. to learn how to become a brewer. She enrolled in Cal Poly Pomona's brewing certificate program.

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For others, the certificate program provided training that opened big opportunities within their current company.

“I've always been really big on continuing education,” said Michael Zalapa, who earned his associate’s degree in business at Orange Coast College in the early 2000s.

He’s worked for 12 years for a Southern California company that manufactures and sells pomade products. The owners of the company bought a brewery in Santa Ana in 2020, he said, and hired a brewer to develop the beers. That brewer left to strike out on his own.

“That's when I started considering going back to school,” Zalapa said.

He had lots of experience in sales and other aspects of business but knew nothing about brewing beer or running a brewery, so he enrolled in the Cal Poly Pomona certificate program last year to learn how a microbrewery works top to bottom. Now, he’s the general manager of Cerveza Cito Brewery in Santa Ana.

Growth in the craft beer industry has slowed in recent years as sales flatten out and some microbreweries close, though several have opened in downtown Los Angeles. There are more than 80 locally based breweries in L.A. County.

“Beer is very high profitability for cost of goods,” Bassett said. At Innovation Brew Works, he said, it costs from 50 cents to $2 to make a pint of beer that sells for $8.

Entry-level jobs offer the grunt work of cleaning vessels, tubes, kegs and all other aspects of the brewing process. Assistant brewers help brewers come up with beers that are consistent in taste and quality.

Limón brewed and worked on beers that won four gold medals last year and led some to say the brewery is the best in the country. He and other graduates say they are very satisfied and did not struggle to find jobs in the industry.

Pay, though, is still an issue.

“I've heard some of my students out there getting about $17 to $20 [an hour] for entry level jobs. Up to $22 bucks, $23 for the brewing positions,” Bassett said.

Give me a flight of beers with Lunch Lady, Study Buddy, and Home Ec.

On a visit to Innovation Brew Works, this LAist reporter tasted a flight of four beers made by Bassett and his students. The ube extract used to flavor the Home Ec. beer gave the brew a purple color, and the smooth taste of the purple yam melded well with the alcohol in the beer.

Reporter Adolfo Guzman-Lopez sampled the beer that students helped make at Innovation Brew Works

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

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LAist

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Bassett at times uses produce grown on the Cal Poly Pomona campus farm to flavor his beers. He used campus-grown Meyer lemons with ice tea hard seltzer for the beer named Study Buddy. He’s used orange juice from the campus harvest and combined it with pineapple juice for a Lunar New Year beer.

Innovation Brew Works celebrates its 10th anniversary on April 26, 2025 at Cal Poly Pomona.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

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This reporter even lifted his pinkie as he brought the 5 oz. glasses (one at a time) to his mouth to savor, because this is not a beer to be chugged a pitcher at a time at a Friday afternoon college party.

A decade of experience shows that beer on a college campus doesn’t have to be crude — it can be an art to be appreciated.