Sometimes the best ideas just need to brew a little.
So goes the story of Greg Mills '01. The path to his current vocation has been anything but direct. As a child, the Anderson, S.C. native thought he wanted to be a doctor. But somewhere around his sophomore year of college, "chemistry started kicking my butt" and he decided to rethink that idea.
Upon graduation, he did what many smart kids do when they don't quite know what they want to do for a living: enrolled in more school. But he knew he was only prolonging the inevitable. Finally, at 23, Mills walked out of the classroom for the last time and into the real world.
For a couple of years he worked odd jobs, all the while racking his brain as to what he wanted to do with his life.
"I remember saying to one of my buddies," Mills recalls, "'There are only two things in this world that I like: beer and science.'"
And that's when it clicked. Almost immediately Mills quit his job doing construction and enrolled in the master brewers program at the University of California-Davis - or, as his dad calls it, "Brew U."
Over the next eight months, for 12 hours a day, seven days a week, he studied everything there is to know about the science of making good beer. After completing his degree, he applied for any brewing job he could find. Almost on a whim he put his name in the hat for a brewery in Alaska. Within days of receiving his resume, they offered him a job. Mills politely asked for 24 hours to think it over. Fittingly, he and his closest pals thought it out over a few beers.
The next day he accepted the job, packed his things up in his truck and started driving.
"I didn't know the first thing about Alaska," he says. "I just knew you go up and turn left."
For two weeks he worked at Sleeping Lady Brewing Company in Anchorage before he even got up the nerve to tell his parents.
"I thought everyone in the family was going to make fun of me," he says. "But instead they all thought it was cool."
Three years later he's finally getting used to wearing his sunglasses at 2 a.m. in the summer, wearing four layers of clothing in the winter and competing even harder for the small percentage of women.
He's also getting used to winning awards for his brewing. In the past two years he has won virtually every Alaskan beer award there is. Most notably he took home the 2008 and 2009 silver medals at the Great Alaskan Beer and Barleywine Fest.
In a given year, Mills will create anywhere from 50 to 60 new varieties of beer. Stouts, pale ales, lagers - you name it, he brews it. Finally, at 29, he's found a job he loves. A job that's interesting. A job that's different. But at the end of the day, he's just like you and me. He likes to come home, kick up his feet and relax on the couch.
While drinking a beer, of course. 