Earning credits for making beer is enough to make quite a few 40 hour per week employees think about heading back to school.

A new partnership between UW-Madison and MillerCoors is creating quite a buzz.

On the surface something like this begs a lot of questions about promoting drinking or what underage students could do with the knowledge but faculty at UW say that's missing the point.

It is an industry that accounts for 63-thousand jobs in Wisconsin and has an economic impact of nearly 6-point-8 billion dollars.

With one squeeze of a scissors, UW-Madison is entering the beer making world.

MillerCoors Vice President of Brewing and Research David Ryder says, "There are several places for them to work within MillerCoors, several areas for them to work."

A new partnership between MillerCoors and the university means students who want to learn how to make beer will get credit for it next spring. For a campus fighting its party school reputation a brewery inside the microbial sciences building may seem like an odd addition.

Chancellor Biddy Martin says, "I don't think a partnership of this sort is going to create a false impression that what this university stands for is drinking and partying."

There are enough bells and whistles on this machine to make it pretty complicated and faculty here say it's not the kind of knowledge a student can take home and use in their basement.

College of Agricultural and Life Sciences Dean Molly Jahn says, "We are very confident it will be put to appropriate use and are just delighted to have that."

In fact, without a pretty strong knowledge of biology, chances are you'll fail the class much less figure out the science behind a tall frosty one.

Jahn says, "A bottle of beer represents a very powerful package of science and technology."

A package that may make UW-Madison biologists the toast of the beer making world.

Ryder says, "If we can have a steady stream of young graduates coming in we can take the industry further and further."

MillerCoors donated the brewing equipment, worth 100-thousand dollars. They say this is the start of what they hope is a continuing relationship with the university.