Beer Career

Did you know that beer is recession proof? It's true. In 2008, Budweiser rose 4.6% in sales--and this was during a recession. How can a person with an English degree get into this eternally growing field? There are a few options.

First is via marketing. English majors are great when it comes to marketing products. Companies desire someone who can be creative with word play, lettering design, and product descriptions to put on a website or the side of a box.

Second is writing a book. The number of books on beer are as endless as the topics to be covered. A book could be on the history of beer, women and beer, large scale brewing, microbrewing, or even home brewing (a guy named Michael Jackson made a career of doing just that.)

Now that you're excited about joining this field, you're probably wondering where to look. That depends on where you live and how big of a company you want to work for. If you live in Portland, Oregon, for instance, try going to the Craft Brewers Alliance and click on careers--they usually have a good list of opportunities. In fact, most large breweries have career info on their websites.

-- Michel Entler