Brewing student growth
How a new concession stand at CSU is uplifting and teaching students
By Cadence Cardona
Breakfast burritos at an American football game might not be typical, but at Gifford Brews and Bites, it’s their specialty. The new concession stand has served student-made beer, dirty sodas with boba pearls, breakfast burritos and more for Ram fans at Canvas Stadium since opening in the fall 2025 semester.
​
The stand holds a clear goal to fuel fans with tasty food and beverages, and ultimately promote Colorado State University’s Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, but there was a deeper mission behind the scenes. Gifford Brews and Bites has prompted new opportunities for students, from amplifying their lab experience and professional development, all the way to social media marketing skills.
​
It’s not uncommon for FSHN students to be involved in hands-on activities that can’t be taught in textbooks. Within FSHN, students majoring in fermentation and food science can take integrated lab courses, even serving their products in the Ramskeller, and students in the hospitality and event management program run the Gifford Café in Room 114 of the Gifford Building.
​
For fermentation and food science student Parker Meuli, CSU’s hands-on science program was a defining factor when he decided what, and where, to study. Fermentation science, the application of chemistry and microbiology to study processes like traditional food and beverage fermentation to industrial processes like producing biofuels, has been a near-perfect intersection for Meuli’s academic interests and hobbies. His academic experience combined with volunteering has only propelled his professional growth, but his personal growth too.
​
Once Jeffrey Callaway, director of the FFS program, sent an email out to recruit volunteers for the new concession stand, Meuli signed up without hesitation.
“I realized that I spend too much time working in academia, not enough time volunteering,” Meuli said, who has volunteered for most of CSU’s home football games this semester in addition to being a member of CSU’s Mycology Club and a Rocky Mountain Institute of Food Technologists scholar. His specialized interest in precision fermentation, a process of engineering biology that uses microorganism’s natural abilities to produce ingredients, outlines his hope to develop sustainable food as a future career. With a minor in design thinking as well, Meuli has given his all to grow as a student and professional.
CSU students Parker Meuli and Maria Vaalar examine samples during their lab.
Parker Meuli, a CSU student and GB&B volunteer.
“It's teaching me to be more assertive,” said Meuli. “I’m an introvert, but having opportunities to work through that is very helpful. I kind of feel alive when I'm talking to people now.”
As Gifford Brews and Bites is fully staffed by volunteers, it was a challenge for Callaway to wrangle enough support for the busy game days.
“It's well over 150 people hours for us to run a game,” Callaway said. “That's a lot to ask of people to show up and volunteer … For fermentation and food science, we're the industry people. We're the ones back there making the product, we're not serving the product.”
​
That’s where FSHN’s Department of Hospitality and Event Management came in and where Callaway credits a significant portion of the concession stand’s success to. It’s also another area for students, like Eli Diesenhof, to get involved. Diesenhof is a junior at CSU studying natural resource tourism with an HEM minor and recalled finding the program unexpectedly. Today, he’s a teaching assistant under HEM Assistant Professor Christina Minihan.
“As a TA in one of these programs, we do help run the Instagram CSU HEM Adventures,” Diesenhof said, who has created social media content for Gifford Brews and Bites. Despite having minimal marketing experience beforehand, Diesenhof has found the experience beneficial, where he has created content running on the football field with Junior, Minihan’s dog and FSHN’s mascot, in addition to finding his community on campus.
​
CSU Student Eli Diesenhof was actively involved in promoting GB&B through social media marketing.
Junior the dog
“The HEM program has a sense of community that I haven’t really seen in many other majors at CSU … the community here is why I joined,” Diesenhof said.
Volunteers at Gifford Brews and Bites have included graduate and undergraduate students, professors, CSU faculty and staff, who have all collaborated together in support of the concession’s success. This year’s menu has featured a unique combination of student-made beer, dirty sodas with boba, breakfast burritos, nachos and more. CAM’s Crusher, an American football lager exclusively brewed this semester, is one student-made beer that has repeatedly sold out during football games.
“Right now, we’re still just in the intelligence gathering phase, enjoying the new thing, figuring out all the bumps,” said Callaway. “… We’ll want to sit down and look at the data and see how it looks, make any adjustments, and then go from there, and if it doesn’t continue, at least it was a fun experiment.”
Callaway said that as Gifford Brews and Bites is still experiential, the program will consider all of the data to identify areas of improvement, but for now, the team is enjoying the fun. For Meuli, as he looks to break into the food development industry, he feels that both his lab experience and selling skills will help his future career.
“We are definitely proud of the beer we make … it’s a unique opportunity to say, ‘We’re making this, we’re doing this,’” Meuli said. “It’s just a good little tribe to be a part of.”