Just started studying to persue cicerone certification.

Decided to take my life in a different direction, my girlfriend is paying for the Certified Beer Server exam... Any body have any advice, or stories to share?

If you know your stuff it should be a breeze. I passed it, it took about 45 min I think they give an hour. I think I got around 85% I think you can pass with a 70% or better. If you don't know something, move on and don't waste your time.

Best wishes!

Yeah it's not hard, especially compared to BJCP certification. It has much less emphasis on knowledge of beer styles & history than BJCP, and more emphasis on things related to the service industry like how a draft system works, appropriate glassware, etc.

I thought there were some questions on the exam that were a bit ambiguous or poorly worded, and I seem to recall there being some factually incorrect statements regarding certain beer styles, although you could tell which answer they were looking for because it's multiple choice and the other answers didn't make sense. Overall it was very easy to pass. If you have a decent knowledge of beer styles and keg your beer, you are can probably nail it. Well, and you need to be able to identify and troubleshoot beer faults as well.


For what it's worth, I feel like the new online BJCP exam has some similar faults. The questions are derived from the classic study guide materials, which have some old technical information as well as some historical information which is probably not accurate, but commonly held misconceptions. Stuff like the IPAs being created as a stronger version of a pale ale to survive the long journey to India aboard ship, etc. You can tell that is the answer they want you to give, even though it's not correct. However, I haven't taken the actual online exam per se. I took it while it was still in beta, although admittedly not very long before it was opened up to the general public, so I don't think the questions & answers are very different from the version I took.

If like to get into BJCP stuff in the future as well, but for now I'm focusing on getting started in a career that would suit me better than what I've been doing for the last 8 years.

I think the master ciccerone is a much more strenuous process.

My plan is to eventually become a master cicerone.

Yeah the higher level Cicerone stuff is undoubtedly tougher, but the beer server one is a piece of cake IMO.


Do you have a particular job in mind for having this certification?

Not necessarily an EXACT job. Just more or less looking to get into the field... I'm somewhat successful in my current career, but I'm just over it... Waking up at 3am, dealing with people I don't like, in and out of freezers all day... I don't have kids, or a mortgage, so I'm going to take a huge paycut and take a chance on something that I will actually enjoy waking up for.