Daniel Gooderham
How did you get into the beer industry? Why does beer matter to you?
I grew up as a teenager around a pub called the Green Dragon in Bungay, Suffolk. The pub and brewery were set-up in 1991 by a homebrew enthusiast. He got a telling off by HMRC as he was supplying the whole town with beer. My mum and step dad managed the pub and I fell in love with cask beer. We still had old barrels that came from Adnams. The nurturing of the cask beer in the cellar captivated me: this living product, the holy grail of searching for the perfect pint. It led me to doing a BSc at Heriot-Watt. 15 years later at Adnams, I love the continuous improvement nature of brewing and am still evermore on that quest. Beer is primordial, and I often think we are at the beck and call of our raw materials, merely bees.
Why do you judge at the World Beer Cup? What does judging at the World Beer Cup mean to you?
This is my first time judging at the World Beer Cup. I have heard so many amazing bits of feedback about how the judging works and the type of characters the Brewers Association wishes to have on its panels. It's a real honor to be selected. I've heard the judging encourages everyone to listen, collaborate, and discuss. This is something I really believe in. In our own tasting panels we have quantitative scoring, but the qualitative and discussion part is so important. It's another reason why I love beer so much; it's such a subjective thing and we all have unique sensory experiences, but then there be watershed characteristics that are shared. To be able to come to agreement about a way a beer is constructed based on all our individual experiences is a thought palace I cherish. To be able to judge and have so many amazing breweries and beers under one roof is extra special. It has to be probably the mecca of all beer competitions.
