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(New Orleans, La. – April 21, 2021) As a mass communications student at ��������, Mike Giusti travelled in 1999 to Europe, where he tasted one of the best beers he had ever had. This spring, he tried to replicate that taste for a local competition – and won. Now, Parleaux Beer Brewing Lab in the Bywater will be serving his beer this summer as a special offering. And Giusti will be teaching students at Loyola to make their own beer in a two-week chemistry course slated for May term.

“The story goes like this - people ask me what my favorite beer is, and I tell them of a night in London during study abroad. Our class went to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre to watch a performance of The Merchant of Venice. Afterward, we stopped at a pub and I drank their house golden ale. It was perfect. The flavor was perfect. It was a perfect summer night in London. Everything was perfect,” said Giusti, who today serves as chair of Loyola’s journalism department. “When I came back home I couldn’t find a beer like it. So, I set off on a quest to recreate that beer. This beer is my attempt at recreating it.”

His creation is called “English Turn.” It is a Golden Ale. The contest he won in March was run by a local home-brew shop that is called Brewstock Home Brew Supplies and owned by a recent Loyola graduate, Oliver Kodner, who earned both a bachelor of music and a master of music degree in trumpet performance. Five breweries participated in the contest, and each of them chose a beer to be their winner. Parleaux Beer Lab chose Giusti’s English Turn. Giusti will collaborate with the brewers at Parlaux to brew a 10-barrel batch of his beer. Typically, he brews a 1/6 barrel, so this batch will be 60x bigger than he has ever brewed before - 300 gallons of beer in all.

“We will be brewing in May, and it will likely be in the tap room in early June as one of their summer offerings,” said Giusti, who visited the brewery this week to make plans. “It will also be available in cans to go from their tap room.”

In May, Giusti will partner with a chemistry professor to offer the May term class “Beer Brewing” to students 21 and older. He will team teach the class with chemistry professor Dr. Shane McGlynn. Giusti will teach the brewing process, cultural and historical significance of beer, and McGlynn will lead instruction on the biochemical process. This is the third year Giusti will teach the three-credit class at Loyola.

“I have been brewing beer since the late ‘90s and realized the amount of science that goes into the process lends itself to a very interesting and approachable and rigorous science class,” said Giusti. “I approached the Chemistry department and they loved the idea.”

For the class, students will brew two batches of beer using two different processes - one a simple “extract” batch and one a complex “all grain” batch. They will use Giusti’s home-brew equipment to make the beer. The rest of the course will focus on learning the ins and outs of the brewing process — how yeast works, what a mash is, what are hops, how starch is converted, etc.

At the end of the class, students will be able to sample our creations. It’s not all fun and games, Giusti said. Students will take two quizzes and a final exam, and they will be writing three papers. They will also hear guest speakers talk about the beer industry and tour the Faubourg Brewery and the Urban South Brewery.