On Becoming a Certified Beer Judge; BJCP exam scheduled for Mid-winter, 2005

Every two years the Edmonton Homebrewers Guild hosts a BJCP training session followed by the exam. Neil Herbst and I will again be teaming up to lead the training sessions starting in September 2004. The exam will be in late February 2005. Training sessions will be once a month on a Saturday afternoon starting September 18. We will also hold a few cram sessions in January. You don’t have to take the training session to write the exam, but it sure helps.

What will be most different this year is that a number of judges will be rewriting in order to attain higher grades and thus advance through the system. Having these additional experienced beer judges participating in the training sessions is sure to make this one of the best of all possible years to be going for your BJCP certification. If you have any interest at all in becoming a BJCP judge this is the year to do it. The tremendous growth in the number of entries in western Canadian regional competitions means there is growing demand for quality beer judges and also means there are many more opportunities to advance through the ranks. We highly encourage all interested members to sign up for this session and for the exam.

Exam fees are supposed to be $50.00 US but we will only be charging $50.00 CAD, the club will subsidize the rest. There will probably be a fee of about $20.00 to cover purchasing some of the beers necessary for the training sessions. We will have a sign up sheet at the September meeting but if you are interested talk to Neil or myself just so we can gauge interest in this event. For persons rewriting the exam, remember you do not have to write the whole exam, you can do either just the tastings or just the essays depending on which area you need most to improve. Exam writing fees are reduced for partial rewrites. You can check your exam scores on the BJCP website.

Seeing that it is never too early to start preparing for this exam we encourage you all to check out the BJCP website. There you will find style descriptions and a lot of information about how to prepare for the exam. Of course everyone would be well advised to attend the two BJCP training sessions being given at this years Hot Break conference! Unless you have been totally out of it in the last few months you will know that Canada’s only BJCP exam graders, Mark Nesdoly and myself, will be giving a session on how to prepare for the exam. And Neil Herbst will be leading an in-the-mouth session on beer faults that commonly are encountered in the tasting part of the exam.

Why be a BJCP beer judge?

On May 8th I had the honour of being a guest speaker at the Regina ALEs AHA qualifier competition. Following is an outline of that talk.

The reasons for becoming a BJCP judge fall into three broad categories: Personal - Club -Regional

PERSONAL

  1. Makes you a better brewer
    1. knowledge of styles
      • get to taste a lot of different types of beer and interpretations of styles
      • Oh, I like that – I want to brew a beer like that.
      • I hate that style so I always get stuck judging it – This can teach you to appreciate and even come to enjoy a style that you once disliked knowledge of faults – you’ll taste a lot at competitions
    2. learn from other judges
      • naturally from more experienced judges
      • but someone is always better at identifying a flavour, aroma or fault than you are, whether that person is higher ranked than you or not
  2. Makes you a better competitor
    1. know what goes on in a competition
    2. better idea of what a winning beer is
      • quality
      • uniqueness
      • what’s currently hot in your region and elsewhere
  3. Makes you aware of trends in brewing
    1. you’re now part of the system so you have to keep current
      • why are style guidelines changing?
      • What new ingredients are out there?
      • Changes in techniques
      • Encourages you to try new brewing techniques, to experiment to be creative
        • oh, I like that – I want to brew a beer like that
  4. Learn not to take judging or yourself too seriously
    • you’ve seen the booboos and burnout that can happen in competitions and so this helps you not to get too pissed when a good beer occasionally gets a bad score
    • or maybe you do come to understand that a certain region just doesn’t judge fairly or they don’t know what a certain style is all about
    • you can avoid them and know why
  5. Makes you feel good
    1. it’s a good feeling to help other people, whether it’s your friends in the club or an anonymous stranger in a competition
    2. gives you confidence that you are a competent brewer
  6. Makes you an effective teacher

CLUB

  1. Makes your club stronger
    1. judges are often the teachers, the leaders or the people that other members naturally turn to for help
    2. every member’s improvement adds value to the club
      • ideally every member should be a judge
    3. creates a core of experts
  2. Sense of comradery/bonding
    1. you’ve been through the exam, you’re judging at competitions – you’re part of a gang, fraternity or sorority
    2. you’re part of a benevolent elite that you want every member to attain
  3. Your club can hold competitions
    1. if you don’t have judges you cannot hold competitions – the more judges you have, the higher their quality and the higher their rank the more prestigious competitions you can hold
      • and competitions are one of the two key elements to learning to Brew Better Beer, the other of course being a member of an active brew club

REGION

  1. Clubs are not strong unto themselves – they are strong amongst themselves
    1. in other words we need each other to be strong, to be good, to be the best we can be
      • we need each other to compete against and to learn from
    2. judges are the emissaries between clubs
      • they are the ones who travel, share ideas and bring that knowledge back to their home clubs
    3. judges are naturally the ones to form political ties between clubs and between organizations
    4. judges hold political clout, they are the ones who will get the ear of the AHA and the BJCP
      • if you really want to be heard in beer politics then you have to be a judge – the higher rank the better
      • judges attract judges - the more judges you have in your club or region the more power your club or region has in the system. This makes sure good competitions keep coming your way, it makes sure that other judges will want to come to your club or region. The knowledge that those outside judges brings helps educate your people – and, as I said before, every members improvement adds value to your club