The Pink Boots Society is proud to announce the recipients of the Siebel World Brewing Academy Concise Course in Brewing Technology scholarship! Each recipient was selected by a committee made up of experienced, women beer industry professionals who hold positions in the brewing industry as brewers, educators and writers. Congratulations to Betsy Lay, Adrianna Hodapp and Nicole McCollem!
Betsy Lay, our Denver Chapter recipient, co-founded Lady Justice Brewing Company in Colorado five years ago and is currently getting ready to make big strides. Personally, she will be leaving her full-time job (the one that pays the bills) to run the brewery, Lady Justice, exclusively. She will also be shepherding the brewery into a significantly larger space with greater foot traffic. “Things are getting serious and it’s time that we step up and make sure we’re in this for a long, long time.”
Betsy started out as a homebrewer – educating herself with every book she could get her hands on and learning from professional brewers. She understands the advantages formal brewing education can provide, and she realizes there are valuable courses and programs that could greatly enhance her skills. In addition to the knowledge she’ll receive from this course, she also wishes to pass the Certified Cicerone Level 2 exam, and eventually continue all the way to Master Cicerone. “I want to be an expert in my field. It’s a long road, for sure, but I know that education will provide the strongest path to get there. I especially love when women can learn with and from each other and I will be excited to share this expertise with my Pink Boots comrades.”
Adrianna Hodapp, our National recipient, became a brewer with Three Weavers Brewing Company in California last January. This is a role she took after six years in the beer industry so she could continue her career growth. Having started out at a small brewpub as a server and bartender, she says, “I expressed my interest in the brewing process and eagerly started shadowing brew days in my spare time. I ended up getting a job at another brewery as a part time cellar person, where I tirelessly washed kegs and scrubbed floors.” Her hard work and initiative paid off when a few months later she moved into the brewery full time. There she learned basic cellaring duties and spent more time on the brew deck, eventually becoming head brewer.
Working for a small brewhouse, she loved the freedom to create new beers, but she wanted more and the position at Three Weavers offered her the ability to grow at a much quicker pace. With the help of this scholarship, Adrianna is looking forward to gaining more knowledge with professional training that is recognized throughout the industry. Her involvement with the Pink Boots Society has increased her confidence in her abilities. “Ever since I started my career as a brewer, I have felt like there is more pressure on me as a woman to be more knowledgeable than my male counterparts.” The scholarship committee took note from Adrianna’s application that “this scholarship would solidify and expand her knowledge and certainly make her more competitive to her male counterparts.”
Nicole McCollem came to the brewing world with a Bachelor of Science in Bakery and Pastry Arts and ten years of baking experience. Now a brewer at Night Shift Brewing in Massachusetts, “My greatest passions include chemistry and engineering, two things the brewing industry holds in spades.”
She has been learning all that she can, both from hands-on experience in the brewery and by taking a brewing chemistry course at a local college last year. That course spawned new recipe ideas as she gained an understanding of how to manipulate ingredients in ways that she didn’t know existed. Applying her experience as a baker and the knowledge of brewing she has acquired “fueled my desire to create interesting recipes by utilizing best practices for yeast propagation and ingredient use.”
The scholarship selection committee was impressed by Nicole’s dedication to the industry, as well as her ability to clearly identify her hopes to professionally improve. They felt the opportunity to take the Siebel course would assist her goals in advancing her knowledge of recipe development. Nicole is looking forward to gaining more knowledge for herself and being able to share it with members in her Pink Boots Society Chapter.
The Concise Course in Brewing Technology is an intensive, online three-month course that utilizes a mix of textual instructions, streaming video presentations narrated by some of the best instructors in brewing, and synchronous chat sessions between students and faculty. Students will gain the knowledge and confidence to work effectively in the world of commercial brewing in this course that covers topics ranging from business of beer, alcohol and health, CIP programs and Quality Assurance/Quality Control.
To learn more about upcoming scholarship opportunities, visit the Pink Boots scholarship page at: https://www.pinkbootssociety.org/upcoming-scholarships/.
