Wine Warehouse presents: women in beer, founders and brewmasters! 

Name: Barbara Groom

Company: Lost Coast Brewery

Role: Founder, Brewmaster

Barbara is unconventional, to say the least.

She grew up wanting to be a skier, even though she lived on a farm in Stockton, California – a place where the climate ranges from hot to…well…really hot. She sold makeup as an Avon representative, having never worn the stuff herself. She became a pharmacist when that occupation was almost entirely male-dominated.
Some people might turn to drinking beer when they’re bored. Barbara? She decided to make it.

And it turns out that she really, really liked doing it. More importantly, she was pretty damn good at it. And after years of searching, she had finally found that elusive intersection where passion and talent met. And there she was, yet again, being unconventional in a dreadfully conventional world. Square peg, round hole…beat of a different drum…etc., etc.

When Barbara started Lost Coast, microbreweries weren’t what you would call a “thing.”

The little guy simply couldn’t compete with the big boys. But Barbara was determined to turn her passion for brewing beer into a sustainable – and profitable – business.

Name: Tanael Escartin

Company: Uinta Brewing

Role: Brewmaster

A Venezuelan native, Tanael joined Uinta Brewing Company in March of 2017 as one of the country’s only female Brewmasters.

After earning her degree in Chemical Engineering, Tana got her start in the beer industry at Empresas Polar, Venezuela’s largest brewery.

Quickly recognized for her talent for pairing yeast and grains, she was selected as the first woman the brewery sponsored to study Brewing Science in Germany, where she earned her Master of Biotechnology Engineering with focus on Brewing Science from the Technical University of Berlin.

Tanael’s passion and knowledge has inspired many to learn the scientific principles behind brewing and become schooled brewmasters themselves.

“My goals in the craft brewing industry are to share my experience and my knowledge with any brewer who is passionate about brewing, emphasize the importance of consistency in the quality of our beers and try to find balance between the freedom needed to create innovative beer recipes and the structure, given by process procedures and specifications necessary to run a healthy beer business.”