Foam flew and flavors flowed on April 24 as students from Arcadia University’s Seminar course “Untapped: Exploring the Sociocultural and Scientific World of Beer” faced off in the Battle of the Brews at Ten7 Brewing Company in North Wales, Pa. 

Although he’s taught the class for years, this was the first time that Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Associate Director of the Center for Antiracist Scholarship, Advocacy, and Action (CASAA) Dr. Favian Martín split the class into two teams, each partnering with a local brewery to create their custom beer before facing off against one another before a panel of judges. Students brewing with Ten7 worked with Matt Nitchke to create Murder on the Beach, a blood orange pale ale. At Brother Kershner Brewing Company in Skippack, Pa., students brewed the Cherry-Lime Cream Ale with Bas Kershner. 

“We were mostly Criminal Justice majors, and we wanted it to be CJ-themed,” said Serena Goodridge ’25. “And what’s themed around CJ? Murder. And what do you get with murder? Blood. So we went with a blood orange flavor, and it was as simple as that.”

“We had some setbacks because having a bunch of college students name a beer can go wrong,” laughed Connor Dennis ’25. “We went with a name around the ingredients of our beer because our original name got shut down.”

During the event, students presented on brewing techniques, ingredients, and creative identity, explaining their methods to the panel of judges made up of faculty, staff, and friends of the course including Dr. Logan Fields, Dr. Alan Branson, Scot Duffey, Danielle Duffy, Claire Shaffer, John Ferrier, and Hannah Gohde. 

Judges scored the beers based on look, smell, taste, and mouthfeel, before giving each an overall score. After counting the scores, Murder on the Beach was crowned the champion of the 2025 Battle of the Brews, earning the team a trophy, gold medals, the right to have their brew served on tap at Ten7, and a healthy pour of bragging rights.

Students also explored diversity, equity, and inclusion in the beer industry, examining how beer intersects with broader social justice issues. They presented some of their findings to attendees.

“The topic of gender came up a lot,” said Jocie Horan ’25. “There are not a lot of female mentors in the craft brewing industry. The culture of craft brewing is not always inclusive for women, so it’s very important we stay aware of that and continue to talk about how to make it more inclusive in the future.”

Martín has been brewing with Ten7 for this course for three years, but knew Kershner through a separate research project on the environmental issues within the beer industry. When Martín brought up the idea of some friendly competition, Kershner was all in.

To inform the students’ decisions around what beer they wanted to craft, the class sampled various brews each week.

“Their palate in terms of beer is very limited. It’s like the Coors Light, the Labatt, what have you,” explained Dr. Martín. “So we had some lagers. We had some pilsners. We had some stouts, some sours, and from there they decided what they wanted to make.”

With the decisions out of the way, students spent a full day at their respective breweries, getting their hands dirty and learning from every step of the brewing process, from lifting grain bags to weighing hops. Since then, the beers have fermented and been canned and labeled for their debut at Battle of the Brews.

“There’s this romanticism that you just throw stuff in a bucket and it’s just fermented and you get beer, but it’s very labor-intensive,” said Dr. Martín. “Students talked to brewers about why they’re doing a step in the brewing process, or about the acidity and the hops. That type of stuff is more [the brewers’] knowledge and forte. So that does help the students understand not only the inner workings of their brew, but also how the various ingredients in beer contribute to the style and the flavor.”

Though the course culminates in a competition between students, Dr. Martín emphasized the importance of teamwork and collaboration.

“They rely on each other not only in brewing the beer, but also in coming up with the logo and style,” he said. “Teams collaborated every step of the way. Were there disagreements? Yes. But we get that everywhere, right? Especially in the work world. So, students learning from that was my hope. That and a great appreciation for the art and science of beer.”