UC Davis Brewing pioneer Dr. Michael Lewis launches scholarship
Endowment recognizes academic and professional excellence, creates opportunities for “a new generation of brewers”
Dr. Michael J. Lewis, iconic UC Davis brewing professor and founder of the UC Davis Master Brewers Program, has launched the Michael and Sheila Lewis Scholarship in Brewing, a merit-based award that recognizes academic and professional success in the industry. The scholarship is funded by a $75,000 endowment created by Lewis and his family, which will provide recipients with support to attend the in-person UC Davis Master Brewers Certificate Program.
“The US brewing industry and the University of California gave me the opportunities to do what I did, fostered the professional life it has been my privilege to live and sustained my family,” said Lewis. “This endowed scholarship is my way of recognizing and celebrating that fact and providing similar opportunities to a new generation of brewers.”
According to Glen Fox, Anheuser Busch Endowed Professor of Malting and Brewing Science at UC Davis and the academic director of the Master Brewers Certificate Program, Lewis’ work as a scholar, educator and researcher directly contributed to the birth of the craft brewing industry. “Michael’s influence on beer and brewing is monumental,” said Fox. “And now, through this endowment, his legacy will continue to live on through the brewers his generosity supports and inspires.”
Lewis joined the UC Davis Food Science and Technology faculty in 1964, where he designed the brewing courses that laid the foundation for the university’s legendary brewing program. He also taught many short courses through UNEX (later CPE) including the immensely successful course “Intensive Brewing Science for Practical Brewing.” This was the direct predecessor in the mid-90s of the UC Davis Master Brewers Certificate Program at UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education (CPE), one of the longest running and most respected professional brewing education programs in the world. Nearly a thousand professional brewers have graduated from the Master Brewers Certificate Program and gone on to work at or found some of the nation’s most respected breweries, including Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Anheuser-Busch/In Bev, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, North Coast Brewing Company and Sudwerk Brewing Company, in Davis.
“I started the Master Brewers Program in the 1990s to bring UC Davis-quality instruction in brewing science to a much wider audience, at a lower cost, with minimal entrance requirements and in less time,” said Lewis. “There still remains the barrier of cost and we hope, as the scholarship endowment grows and matures, that barrier can be lowered for a few students.”
The Michael and Sheila Lewis Scholarship in Brewing will provide a partial scholarship to the UC Davis Master Brewers Certificate Program in 2024 with the intent that full scholarships will be offered as the endowment matures. Scholarship winners will be known as Lewis Scholars.
History of the Master Brewers Program
The Master Brewers Certificate Program has produced hundreds of brewers that have gone on to work for some of the biggest names in the business. Learn how one of the longest running and most respected brewing programs in the world got its start.
“I am delighted that the brewing program that I initiated 60 years ago here in Davis has not merely survived but, because of my efforts and the efforts of those who followed me, has become a mecca for brewing instruction and research in the Americas,” said Lewis.
The Michael and Sheila Lewis Scholarship is part of UC Davis Professional Brewing Scholarships, which provide support for deserving students to attend UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education’s world-renowned in-person and online Brewing Programs. Scholarships are designed to recognize academic and professional excellence and increase diversity and cross-cultural understanding in the brewing industry.
For more than 55 years, the brewing programs offered by UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education have provided students with an in-depth understanding of brewing science and brewery engineering and prepared them to enter the brewing industry with the potential to rise to the highest levels of leadership within it. For more information on UC Davis Professional Brewing Scholarships, the UC Davis Master Brewers Program and how to support UC Davis’ efforts to increase excellence and diversity in the brewing industry, contact Jon Hughes, director of Brewing and Sensory Science at UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education (jghughes@ucdavis.edu).