Julie Perez and Robert Guerrero win 2026 Siebel brewing scholarships

Julie Perez and Robert Guerrero turned homebrewing into a professional rung on the ladder, and now that ladder reaches Montreal. The two brewers won the 2026 Glen Hay Falconer Foundation Siebel Brewing Scholarships, each backed by a $1,500 travel and lodging stipend to attend the WBA Concise Course in Brewing Technology this October.

The award matters because it is doing more than sending two people to class. The Glen Hay Falconer Foundation said this was its 62nd brewing education scholarship, a mark of how deeply the program has settled into the Western craft beer pipeline. The 2026 recipients were chosen from a highly competitive applicant pool spanning more than half the United States, with eligibility limited to applicants from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Alaska and Hawaii. The application deadline was April 22, 2026.

Perez’s path runs through both homebrewing and the professional shop floor. She is tied to Pink Boots Society, developed an early passion for home brewing, and later built operational experience at Magnolia Brewing Company and New Belgium Brewing Company. The scholarship committee credited her eagerness, aptitude and commitment to sharing knowledge with others, while Perez has said she wants to build a brewery centered on collaboration, mentorship and learning. For an industry still working to widen access to formal training, that combination reads like a future hire, a future manager and maybe a future owner in one package.

Guerrero’s story is equally rooted in the hobby-to-industry bridge. A computer engineer by training, he moved from homebrewing into professional beer, started at Drake’s Brewing Company and now works at Barebottle Brewing Company, a brewery that says it draws its identity from homebrewing and experimentation. Guerrero hopes to open his own brewery one day and use it to create good jobs and community opportunities, an ambition the selection committee singled out in a competitive field. It is exactly the kind of talent-development story the scholarship was built to find.

The course itself fits that mission. Siebel says the WBA Concise Course in Brewing Technology is a two-week intensive covering the topics critical to successful brewery operations, designed both for brewers building a broader technical foundation and for people entering the industry. Because the class now meets in Montreal, U.S. passport holders must travel to Canada, though no special visa is required.

For craft beer and homebrewing, Perez and Guerrero’s win lands in familiar territory: the garage, the pilot system and the first job behind the brew deck. The scholarship does not just reward where they have been. It points to where the hobby can still take them.