Ten years and counting for these engineers turned brewers

By Taylor Parks

Going from studying mechanical engineering to hitting the ten-year anniversary of running your own brewery is not something most people have in common, but MechSE alumni Brent Schwoerer (BSME 2001) and Tom Korder (BSME 2005) have both done exactly that.

The two central Illinois natives – Schwoerer grew up on his family’s farm in the Bloomington-Normal area; Korder is a townie from Urbana – have expressed the value of an engineering background in endeavors both within and beyond the field.

“You can take what you learn in engineering school anywhere you go,” Korder said. “What got you through the program, the way you learn and the way you process things, will get you through the rest of your career, no matter what it is.”

Although their companies recently hit a shared milestone, these engineers’ pathways to brewing success tell different stories.

Studying engineering was a natural fit for Korder, who enjoyed taking things apart and learning how they work. His path took shape when he began working for Anheuser-Busch straight out of college, following recommendations from satisfied friends who had done the same. “It wasn’t my lifelong dream to be a brewer, but once I got the position and started learning the intricacies of everything beer could be, my passion began,” he recalled.

“Running a business is a totally different beast than just brewing. But as long as I can learn and grow, that's how to succeed. ”

Tom Korder (BSME 2005)

He later worked as a manager for Goose Island in Chicago before founding Penrose Brewing Company in Geneva with former Goose Island colleague Eric Hobbs.

“We were inspired by the tiling pattern,” he said of the name. “The pattern looks beautiful because of the math and science behind it. We relate that to brewing—at the end of the day, most people just care about the beer in the glass and the way it tastes. But the reason it turned out that way is because of all the math and science and engineering effort that we put into it before it reached the glass.”

Penrose has earned a number of accolades since its launch ten years ago, such as its Goofy Boots hazy IPA earning first a bronze medal from the Great American Beer Festival in 2019 and then a gold in 2020, and its Lemon Seltz-Up hard seltzer earning a gold medal in 2023 from the Beverage Testing Institute.

“Having the national recognition for these products really shows that all of your hard work can pay off,” Korder said. “Even just making it to ten years has been huge for us—our tenth year was the best we’ve had.”

Penrose has experienced an impressive evolution over its first ten years, starting out with Belgian brews and foraying into IPAs before expanding to include hard seltzers. Most recently, Penrose scaled its distribution to include Wisconsin in addition to Illinois.

“The plan for the next few years is to continuously evolve and change,” Korder said. “We want to go where the industry takes us and do what the consumer wants. Alternative beverages are a big talking point in the industry these days, so that’s something we’re playing around with.

“Running a business is a totally different beast than just brewing,” he reflected. “But as long as I can learn and grow, that’s how to succeed.”

“It might not be the same as the manufacturing line at Caterpillar, but the brewery is very technical and I continue to learn as I go. There's all kinds of cool ways to apply engineering to any kind of business.”

Brent Schwoerer (BSME 2001)

Continuously learning and growing is also what drives Engrained Brewing Company founder Schwoerer, who rediscovered his passion for engineering in brewing.

The former product development engineer had known since his time in MechSE that he was most passionate about hands-on projects.

“I really loved my senior design project, which was an intake manifold redesign for Formula SAE,” said Schwoerer, noting that his interest in automotives and combustion engines defined his college career. “It helped me figure out that I didn’t want to be the type of engineer who sat behind a computer all day.”

Schwoerer started working in new product development at Caterpillar after earning his master’s degree in human resource education from the College of Education at Illinois. Over the course of ten years with the company, he gradually spent less and less time out in the field as he moved up the ranks.

“Corporate America wasn’t where I was finding the passion I’d had when I started out, and I was looking for something that would get me back to my roots,” said Schwoerer, whose connection to the family farm would eventually become the foundation for the brewery. “Growing up, we had the kind of lifestyle where if you wanted to eat it, you grew it. My family all came together to make things work.”

The idea to start a brewery first took root when Schwoerer’s wife and fellow Illinois alum gifted him a homebrewing kit. “We’d worked in bars and restaurants to help pay our way through school, which is actually how we met,” he recalled. “Homebrewing was very technical, which was great for my engineering mind, but it also had the artistic element of melding flavors together.”

The blend of technical and artistic aspects combined with the hands-on nature of brewing presented the business opportunity Schwoerer had been looking for. He began planning a micro-brewery in 2010 and opened the brewpub three years later. His family’s roots in farming and desire for clean eating inspired Engrained’s farm-to-table menu.

“We buy whole hogs and whole steers, which is a rare model for a restaurant,” he said. His business plan also prioritizes local farmers, with 60% of Engrained’s kitchen ingredients sourced from within an 85-mile radius and 100% of its pork bought from the family farm. Indeed, this model embodies Engrained’s core values.

“I built the business on four cornerstones: sustainability, sourcing locally, supporting regenerative agriculture, and culture,” he said. “We try to make real food from real ingredients.”

Schwoerer also values not just the customer, but the employee. “I like to say that my employees are my number one stakeholder and my customers are number two,” he said. “We really focus on the employee experience, and I think that’s helped us survive all these years.”

More recently, Engrained contracted to provide alcohol concessions and a beer garden for the new SCHEELS Sports Park, set to open in 2025. Within the past few years, the company also started canning popular brews for local distribution.

“It might not be the same as the manufacturing line at Caterpillar, but the brewery is very technical and I continue to learn as I go,” Schwoerer reflected. “There’s all kinds of cool ways to apply engineering to any kind of business.”

For both brewers, cheers to the next ten years!