 The Department of Technology of Wine and Beer was founded in 1984 as part of the School of Agriculture at the University of Plovdiv. Initially the department was named Department of Technology of Wine. During the period from 1948 to 1953 the department was mainly involved in the education and training of specialists for the wine industry. After the foundation of the University of Food Technologies (UFT) in 1953, the department started educating specialists for the brewing industry as well and was renamed to Department of Technology of Wine and Beer. In 1976 the department splits into two independent departments – Department of Beer and Non-Alcoholic Beverages and Department of Wine and Hard Liquor. In 1999 the two departments merged and formed the current Department of Technology of Wine and Beer.
As part of UFT, the department offers Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in a number of majors among which are Technology of Wine and Beer and Technology of Fermentation Products in French. In addition, the department has a PhD program in Technology of Alcoholic and Non-alcoholic Beverages.  Every year about 80 students graduate from the Department of Technology of Wine and Beer and find jobs in the non-alcoholic beverages, malting, brewing, wine, and hard liquor industries.
Since the department foundation until present day, more than 2200 specialists (both part-time and full-time students) have graduated and now work in the wine and brewery industries in Bulgaria. In addition, the department has more than 130 graduated engineer-technologists from other countries such as Russia, Moldova, Macedonia, Germany, Poland, Vietnam, Cuba, Mongolia, Albania, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Benin, and Korea.
In addition, the Department has awarded 45 Doctoral Degrees. The education of the doctoral students is focused on the latest topics of interest in the industry such as effective use of energy in the production of malt, beer, wine and hard liquor, intensification of the fermentation process in maturation of beer in CCV, improvement of the colloid stability of wine and beer, production of dyes for non-alcoholic and hard liquor beverages, selection and utilization of yeast and bacteria during wine and  beer production, extraction of phenol compounds during the production of red wine, influence of the stabilization processes on the wine quality, and utilization of oak wood in the production of hard liquor.
Currently, the Department has a number of highly educated and qualified faculties teaching a variety of courses. The teachers employ new and proven methods for education and use a number of renovated labs and lecture rooms. The renovation of the rooms was realized with the great support of a number of companies in the brewing and wine industries with which the Department maintains excellent professional relationship. This helps a lot for the excellent preparation of the prospective engineer-technologists and their professional realization after graduation. |
