Tasting Beer is Serious Stuff: BJCP Beer Evaluation Exam

[Pappers_]

https://singingboysbrewing.com/blog/what-a-hobby-bjcp-beer-evaluation-exam

Tasting Beer is Serious Stuff: BJCP Beer Evaluation Exam

A hardy cadre of beer judges and brewers took a beer tasting and evaluation exam that I administered this past Saturday morning. It turned out to be a wild, wintry morning, but ten registrants braved the cold and snow to make their way to Lo-Rez Brewing in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood to take the test.

The Beer Judging Examination is the second of three tests for the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP), an international, volunteer-driven organization that educates and credentials judges and competitions. I presented six beers, one every fifteen minutes, to the examinees, telling them only the style of the beer. They then filled out a scoresheet on each beer, including sections on aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel and their overall impression.

Proctors and Examinees

Two proctors, Gail Milburn and Jordan von Kluck, each did the same. Both are senior, experienced judges – Gail’s rank is Grand Master and Jordan is a National judge. Exam graders will use their scoresheets, as well as my information on the beers presented, as a basis to grade the examinees scoresheets.

Six of the examinees are already credentialed judges and retook the exam in order to increase their BJCP rank. This is common – like most things, practice improves performance. When I initially took the exam, I did well enough to be credentialed as a Certified judge. After more than three years of judging at competitions, I had increased my competency to the point where I retook the exam and improved my score enough to be promoted. For the last couple of years, I’ve volunteered as a judge at more than two dozen competitions and am a better judge than I was two years ago.

The other four examinees are prospective beer judges, seeking credentials. These prospective judges are my motivation for putting in the effort to administer the exam – building the pool of BJCP judges here in Chicago. One of the key elements for a successful competition is sufficient numbers of credentialed judges. This seems obvious, but honestly, it is one of the biggest issues for competitions and is directly related to the size of flights during the competition and the overall quality of the feedback and scores.

Out of a total of 100 points, an examinee who gets 60 points or greater gains BJCP credentials as a Recognized judge. A score of 70 or more and experience judging in at least five competitions earns the judge a rank of Certified. A score of 80 or more plus experience judging in at least ten competitions means the judge may take the third BJCP exam – a written exam – which may lead to ranks of National, Master or Grand Master. About 85% of BJCP judges are ranked Recognized or Certified.

(continued in the next post)

 

[Pappers_]

Getting Ready for the Exam

Lo-Rez Brewing hosted our exam – just the latest way this excellent brewery in Pilsen supports homebrewers. We started our exam at 10 am, the taproom opens at noon on Saturdays, so we had the space to ourselves. Lo-Rez’s big, airy open space gave the examinees and proctors plenty of room to spread out. Earlier in the week, I brought the exam beers to the brewery to store in their walk-in fridge, and on the day of the exam, used the space near their walk-in as a staging area, to prepare the beers and pour them into a pitcher before serving, out of sight of the examinees and proctors. I used a pitcher so that the beers were completely anonymous to the examinees, and also because I blended some beers before presenting them.

Much of the work for the exam happened before the exam. There was the scheduling of the exam, creating the webpage for the exam, the online registration, and then managing the registration process. This included responding to folks as they registered and managing the waitlist of folks who wanted to take the exam, beyond the twelve maximum allowed to take the exam. This limit is based on the resources needed to grade the exams – it is a lot of work to grade these exams.

I also offered to hold some workshops for those taking the exam, focusing on the styles, the basics of sensory evaluation, and practicing evaluating beers using the BJCP scoresheets. I ended up doing four workshops – the first focused on German beers, then Belgian, UK (except stouts and porters) and finished with stouts and porters from around the world. We talked through the styles, how they are grouped by the BJCP, how they are related and distinguished from each other, then tasted four of the styles within that evening’s style ‘family’. The first beer we tasted and discussed. The next three, we tasted, spent fifteen minutes filling out the BJCP scoresheet, and then discussed.

The Exam Beers

For the exam, I presented six beers, covering a range of styles and also of varying quality, some with minor and major flaws.

First, I presented a German Weissbier, more commonly known as a Hefeweisen. At one point this was a reasonably good, bottle conditioned beer, but it was old. It seemed stale, oxidized, and papery. The yeast in the bottle had clumped together and looked remarkably unappetizing in the glass. It also lacked the style’s hallmark clove phenols and banana esters. Thanks to Bob Donahue for sharing this beer.

I followed that with a German lager called a Schwartzbier – a dark lager, smooth with some roast notes. This was a homebrewed example from my friend Bill Goetz and was an excellent beer, in my opinion. Really a delicious, smooth, flavorful beer. This beer deserved an ‘excellent’ BJCP score, 38+, in my opinion.

Next came an American Stout that missed the style in a few ways. I made this sample by blending a very good Tropical Stout with a very good American Stout. Jeff Whelpley made the Tropical Stout and Todd Stewart brewed the American. I blended the beer about 2:1 Tropical to American and presented the beer to the examinees as an American. A Tropical Stout is unusual – Jeff’s example was full of cherry ester flavors and quite sweet. The roast is restrained and low. Todd’s American stout was a good example of the style, until I messed with it! The resulting blend was an American Stout that was too sweet, too fruity, with too little bitterness and roast character.

The fourth beer I presented for evaluation was the only professionally brewed example presented – Fuller’s London Pride, a Best Bitter style. An excellent example of the style. There was some concern from one of the proctors that this beer had too much age on it and missed the style, but the other proctor agreed with me that it was quite good. This was a 40+ beer in my opinion.

The fifth beer was the most obviously and worst flawed beer in the exam. I took a very good IPA and mixed it 1:1 with an old beer that had gone sour with wild bacteria or yeast. It was murky, sour, vinegary, as well as lacking the qualities of a good IPA. Everyone agreed it was a bad beer, but I included it because judges sometimes have a hard time with the words to describe beers where something has gone horribly wrong – typically, they get hung up on the big flaw and don’t actually describe the other aspects of the beer. From a quick read of the scoresheets, though, most of the examinees did a good job with this beer.

We ended the exam on a high note, with Patty McGuire’s and Melissa Hiller’s Imperial Saison. This is a very good beer, with prominent spicy phenols and bright fruity esters. It is a big, strong beer, though, pushing outside the style guidelines for a regular strength Saison, which is what I presented it as to the examinees. So, delicious, but missing the style in one important way, being too alcoholic for the style. The proctors and most of the examinees picked up on this.

Next Steps and Thanks

I scanned and organized all the examinees' and proctors' scoresheets and sent them off to the BJCP's exam director, who will distribute them and my notes to a set of graders. Grading is an ardous, time intensive process, with many people involved. The examinees should get their results in four to six months.

I’m not going to register another exam with the BJCP right away, I’ll wait a little and then check on the local interest in another exam. Steve McKenna in the western burbs regularly holds an exam, also, plus I think the demand for the exams is cyclical, with some ups and downs. A couple of years ago, two CHAOS friends, Kyle Nordquist and Jeff Whelpley, also administered an exam. So we’ll see. My next step regarding exams is to work through the training materials for grading exams and give that another try.

Big thanks to Gail and Jordan for proctoring, to the Lo Rez crew (Kevin, Dave, Emily and Ginny) for hosting us, and to Bob, Bill, Todd, Jeff, Melissa and Patty for the beers.

 

[JimRausch]

Thank you Pappers for organizing this. And for presenting it to us- the HBT public. Some of the members of my HBC have been exploring the BJCP process, initially by printing out the study sheet, and by studying various styles at club meetings. It's good to see what an exam actually looks like. Maybe some day we'll be ready.

 

[treacheroustexan]

Thank you so much for writing this. Taking this test and judging competitions is something I've always wanted to do, but it's very intimidating.

 

[jturman35]

For grins I just took the free practice exam and must have barely passed it. I missed like 5 out of 20.

 

[wepeeler]

Great post. I'm very interested in starting the process, so it's great to see this spelled out in detail. Thanks.

 

[mongoose33]

Why don't you come on up here and do one in Platteville?

Or maybe Dubuque?

Seriously, it would be neat to get something like this in Dubuque, I think there'd be enough people interested. Wish I knew how to make that happen.

 

[Pappers_]

For those interested in BJCP credentials, one possible first step I would suggest is judging in a competition. The judging director will pair you with an experienced, senior judge and there's no better way to learn. Then, if you find you enjoy it, you can delve more deeply into it. That was my path.

If you're anywhere near Chicago and want to do this, let me know - the Chicago Cup is March 23rd and we'd love to have you join us.

 

[mongoose33]

For those interested in BJCP credentials, one possible first step I would suggest is judging in a competition. The judging director will pair you with an experienced, senior judge and there's no better way to learn. Then, if you find you enjoy it, you can delve more deeply into it. That was my path.

If you're anywhere near Chicago and want to do this, let me know - the Chicago Cup is March 23rd and we'd love to have you join us.

I'd love to do it....but I'll be in Asheville NC for a BYO brewing bootcamp that weekend. The yeast worshop and the hops workshop.

Judging is one of the things I want to get into. I've done an off-flavor workshop, have some friends with excellent palates I have evaluating my beer...but this is one place I can improve.