Brewers’ Research and Education Fund Mid-Year Review

Despite the ongoing disruption to our lives, the work of the Brewers’ Research and Education Fund (BREF) has continued to go ahead with a meeting of the BREF Advisory Committee this week. In November, the Advisory Committee, which assists the Trustee (the Brewers’ Company) in the administration of grants supporting relevant scientific research and education in the brewing industry, considers interim and final reports for ongoing projects.

Several projects currently being funded have been impacted by the effect of the lockdown earlier this year, with timetables being pushed back to accommodate extended closures of offices and labs. However, it has been encouraging to see how well projects have adapted to the “new normal” and how individuals and project teams have found ways to continue their work.

The BREF is currently involved in funding over 20 ongoing projects, which include “British Hops: Genetic Marker Population Material - Maintenance of Plant Material”, “Digitisation of audio video content from the National Brewing Library (NBL) and Michael Jackson collections at Oxford Brookes University”, “A Word in Your Beer: examining the relationship between positive beer drinking culture, masculinity, and wellbeing” and “High Impact Technical Content to support the UK Brewing Apprenticeship Program”.

Applications for funding are accepted between January and March each year and we look forward to being able to award new grants in 2021.