New leadership refreshes Augie Brew and Gold club

Sioux Falls sunshine beats down on Kirkeby-Over Stadium as the Vikings football team opens its home season. A thirsty fan reaches for his drink, only to find it empty.

A cold beer beckons, and he flashes his ID to enter JJ’s Beer Garden. Scanning the menu, his eyes land on “Augustana’s Brew and Gold.” Intrigued, he orders it — unaware the story behind this beer began with a group of students and a dream several years ago. Although they didn’t achieve exactly what they sought out to, a few different students now hold the keys to change that.

The Augie Brew and Gold Club is back under new leadership this year. 

The club has been around since 2022, but due to a lack of student engagement in the past, Brew and Gold has not been as active on campus as staff adviser and biology professor Stephanie Bruggeman would have liked. This year, that is going to change.

“The first year or two [the club] was mainly upperclassmen who had this strong desire to do a few things, mostly beer-related brewing,” Bruggeman said. “The energy quickly ran out because the way we had set up the constitution you had to be 21 to be president. Students are then 21 for a semester or maybe a year and then they are gone, and so is the leadership.” 

Bruggeman and sophomore Gracen Juffer, the club’s president, said Brew and Gold now has the structure and events in place to better meet the needs of all students, rather than just those over 21.

Juffer said the changes occurred after being “frozen” due to club inactivity. She said that in order to unfreeze Brew and Gold, members had to update their constitution by a two-thirds vote. 

One of the major changes made to the constitution was allowing any second-year student to be an officer in an electoral position, meaning students can now take on leadership and membership positions early on as opposed to waiting until their junior year.

“I wanted to promote the minor even more,” Bruggeman said. “I had some students that were very, very interested in it, and I grabbed that opportunity and we are running with it. We’ve got some students that are doing a really good job taking over leadership.”

Juffer and junior Steven Asmus have both been proactive in making Brew and Gold prevalent on campus. Juffer handles the overall club with a focus on the applied side, and Asmus, who runs the social media, is primarily interested and involved with the business portion of the club. 

The group has also made it a priority to bring awareness to binge drinking on campus. Through Brew and Gold’s awareness efforts, the club hopes to lower the number of calls Campus Safety receives regarding substance abuse at Augustana.

In 2021, the year with the most recent data available, there were 60 student disciplinary referrals to the Campus Judicial Systems for liquor law violations, according to Augustana’s Clery report. That is more than double the number of referrals in 2019. Juffer and Asmus both said the club is working towards events promoting healthy drinking habits in order to help combat liquor-related referrals. 

According to Bruggeman, Brew and Gold also believes that by bringing awareness to alcohol consumption, the experiences of those over 21 with drinking alcohol can be improved.

“I think being able to let students know that you don’t have to get completely blotto,” Bruggeman said. “If you drink responsibly, you’ll have a more enjoyable and rewarding time than the alternative.”

Local business, marketing opportunities

Asmus, a business administration and marketing double major, said the club gives students an opportunity to get involved with brewing without adding the major. Some students take the courses after simply having an interest in brewing. The club helps those students find a place to further pursue brewing and fermentation.

“We actually go to different businesses to actually look at the business and how they do operations,” Asmus said. “How they distribute things, how they produce and sell their beer or their product.”

Asmus said students in the club will acquire both networking opportunities, business and practical life skills and knowledge on how to brew both non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages. 

Something Asmus finds exciting is the club’s and minor’s engagement with local businesses. They both have connections to POET, vineyards in the area and Remedy Brewing Company and have been pursuing additional brewing opportunities. 

Asmus said the club will work with the minor to tour different breweries and local businesses to analyze the business side of the brewing and fermentation industry.

“Both the courses from the minor and Brew and Gold allow you to learn more about how a business works, from the product, to distributions, laws and how to market your product,” Asmus said.

Applied side

Those more interested in the scientific aspects of brewing and fermentation align more with the “applied” side of the club, which Juffer oversees. Juffer is currently pursuing her biology degree and intends to attend medical school in the future. 

“I hope to go into medicine, but there’s a creative side that’s like plan B, so if medicine doesn’t work out I can go into brewing, right?” Juffer said. “But, specifically, alcohol use and abuse is something I’m interested in and can look into. I can use the minor and this club experience for possibly a career in alcohol abuse prevention.”

Juffer said she hopes other students recognize the opportunity and take advantage of the club’s benefits to the scientific fields. 

The applied side also focuses on the specific brewing and fermentation process. Juffer said she took the “Intro. To Brewing” course offered by Augustana and became fascinated with the science behind brewing and fermentation.

“One wrong thing, one little mistake in your fermentation process or your brewing process in general can lead to all these catastrophic events,” Juffer said. “Your beer and other drinks could turn out bad and you can taste that. That’s what excites me the most.”

Through community, Juffer said she believes Brew and Gold can connect people with scientific interests, as any and all students can find something within the club that both excites and educates them. 

“There’s a crossover between science and creativity, but, also, there’s a crossover between science and medicine,” Juffer said. “It’s this huge umbrella that encapsulates it all. That’s why any student interested in anything can find their place in brewing.”

Looking ahead

The club and minor have many goals for the rest of this year and the long-term future. Juffer said the club will work hand-in-hand with the minor. 

Juffer also said the club will continue to build off of outreach with other businesses and other things involved with brewing and fermentation. Brew and Gold hopes to give students the information they need to succeed after school to aid in doing research or even getting hired at a brewery. 

Bruggeman said a few things she hopes to establish on campus are non-alcoholic cider events, a cider to sell at sporting events, compete nationally with some brews and partake in public community service through Brew and Gold. 

However, one of Bruggeman’s, Juffer’s and Asmus’ biggest goals is to establish a brewing and fermentation fair on campus. Local vendors, both from outside of campus and from other campus clubs, could bring something fermented. Juffer said fermentation is “a preserving method,” which would qualify items like bread and pickles, among others, for sale.

Because the club lacks freshman membership, Asmus said Brew and Gold also hopes to reach out to younger students with non-alcoholic events, shifting away from the stigma that brewing and fermentation only apply to beer.