Beer is composed of four simple components: water, malted barley, hops and yeast. The unique flavor profile boils down to the innovative capacity of the brewers. At Knight Campus, this challenge falls into the hands of a 10-student cohort.
The Knight Campus is home to the Bioengineering program, but anyone over the age of 18 is eligible to participate in the minor, first introduced in fall 2024.
“Teams get people from management, biology, history, journalism and they all bring something different to the table,” Lindsey Rubottom, brewing innovation instructor and lab manager, said.
In each of the four required classes, students design new recipes by manipulating ingredients, prototyping and receiving peer feedback.
During the five hour brewing days, there are five crucial steps: mashing, lautering, boiling, cooling and fermentation. In simple terms, sugar is extracted from malted grains, separated and sterilized during the boiling process, at which point hops are added. Hops “create a bitterness to the beer,” Rubottom said. They greatly contribute to a beer’s overall flavor profile.
Daela Montgomery, a biology student and graduate of the minor, reflected on the importance of hops in
her group’s final, grilled pineapple beer. “When we were brewing our beer, we picked one hops that was very neutral and it didn’t contribute much flavor wise.” In a preceding iteration, Montgomery’s group opted for a stronger hops with more “‘citrusy notes.’”
Once hops are added and the product is cooled, the beer is put into a fermenter for two to three weeks. Due to the short brewing time, groups have great flexibility to adapt, overcome challenges and market the finished product to the target audience.
Keila Barton, a sports business student on Montgomery’s team, has cherished the hands-on nature of the class, unlike many lecture-based classes at UO.
“The only thing I’ll ever physically create in sports business is a slide deck,” Barton said.
Similarly, Montgomery will miss the collaborative community found in her brewing cohort and the feeling of accomplishment in creating “this product that reflects all of us.”
Both Montgomery and Barton are eager to apply their problem-solving skills to their prospective careers. For Montgomery, it’s how to adapt to challenges in a lab setting. In marketing the pineapple beer to a Gen-Z audience, she’s discovered “how to make a product a story” — a skill transferable to a
successful career in sports business.
Beyond the brewing cohort, students are welcomed into the greater Eugene brewing community. At the
end of the fourth course for the minor, Capstone: Interdisciplinary Beer Design Lab, along with the design and refinement of each team’s beer, label design and final pitch to an audience, a public tasting event was held at Claim 52 Brewing on Dec. 9, 2025.
Rubottom is eager to have a public tasting event to mark the completion of the four-course sequence each year. For the cohort beginning in spring 2026, the last course will fall in spring 2027, and Rubottom hopes there to be future overlap with Eugene Beer Week in June.
From an instructor perspective, Rubottom’s favorite aspect of the class is “seeing the growth in the students from the first term, not knowing what to expect and later being able to take skills into other areas of their lives.
