Karl Ockert, the original brewer at BridgePort Brewing in Portland is leaving the Oregon brewery to become the technical director for the Master Brewers Association of the Americas.
The MBAA Technical Director selection committee is pleased to announce that Karl Ockert has accepted the position of Technical Director for the Master Brewers Association of the Americas and will start on September 1, 2010. Karl will be expanding the role of MBAA Technical Director from its current part-time duties to a full-time role. He will assume full responsibility as Technical Director when Ray Klimovitz, current MBAA Technical Director, retires in December 2010. Karl Ockert has been the brewmaster of the BridgePort Brewing Company in Portland, OR, which he helped found and build, since 1984. He earned his B.S. degree in fermentation sciences from the University of California at Davis in 1983. Karl’s brewing career has covered the spectrum of brewing plants, from brewpubs to the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Newark, NJ.
Long active in the MBAA, Ockert has served as chair of the MBAA Technical Committee and editor of the MBAA Practical Handbook for the Specialty Brewer series – books that occupy shelves in small breweries across the country.
Oregon Live offered this email from Ockert:
“The new job will run the educational programs at the MBAA, editor of the Technical Quarterly, some new book writing projects, and their new outreach on-line programs we are working on. It will be a lot of fun and after almost 30 years of running breweries, I am ready for something new. I will be commuting all the way downstairs to my home office and making the occasional trip to run classes or go to meetings, but I do get to stay in Oregon which was an important consideration. I will still be involved in the Oregon beer scene but in a ‘non-denominational’ role.”