Street Credibility, or more popularly known as “Street Cred”, is an oft pursued and highly desired, yet difficult to acquire form of influence. As portrayed in various media outlets, street cred is often attained by doing something illegal, often resulting in some form of property damage or bodily harm to another. You can probably get a better definition of it from the Urban Dictionary.
As someone who is blogging about beers, writing up reviews of beers, and doing beer tasting parties, I worry about my street cred. Other than my own personal experiences as a homebrewer and through many, many hours of research (reading, listening to podcasts, drinking), I don’t have any more perceivable experience than the average person. While I may feel that way, the people I do talk beer to seem to think otherwise. It’s the running joke really that when you get me talking about beer, I just don’t know when to stop.
In any event, whatever perceptions I may have about my street cred will soon disappear. The BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program) is a program designed to train amateurs on how to judge and evaluate beer. In their own words:
“The purpose of the Beer Judge Certification Program is to promote beer literacy and the appreciation of real beer, and to recognize beer tasting and evaluation skills. We certify and rank beer judges through an examination and monitoring process.
The BJCP was founded in 1985 and has administered the Beer Judge Examination to 4,472 individuals worldwide. Nearly 2,500 are currently active judges in the program, with over 400 holding the rank of National or higher. Since we started keeping detailed records, our members have judged over 396,580 beers and we have sanctioned over 3,226 competitions.”
Starting Thursday, January 31, 2008, I will begin studying to become a certified beer judge. This is good news for this website in the sense that I can now review these beers from a position of authority. If all goes well, I will have had formal training on the subject matter and it’s no longer just me, sitting in my office drinking by myself. Now it’ll just be me, sitting in my office drinking by myself, with a certificate on the wall.
How awesome is that?
In any event, I will continue to blog about the BJCP training, do beer reviews (I have quite a few beers lined up in my fridge waiting to be reviewed) and write about the beer world in general. Wish me luck as I’m going to need it.
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