This past Wednesday marks the third week Sammy and I have been going the BJCP study group held at the More Beer! store in Los Altos headed up by BJCP Grand Master John Watson. I managed to convince Sammy to join me this time around although it didn’t take much convincing on her part. She has always expressed an interest in learning more about beer and this class presented the perfect opportunity for her to do so. I just need a reason to study so I can retake the test and hopefully move up a rank.
For those who don’t know, the BJCP is an amateur organization of people who undergo a strict testing and evaluation process in order to judge beer. Mainly on a homebrew level although the professional level is not uncommon. BJCP stands for Beer Judge Certification Program and it’s core beliefs can be summed up in these three points:
- Promote Beer Literacy
- Promote the appreciation of real beer
- Recognize beer tasting and evaluation skills
It was about this time last year that I took the BJCP class the first time. Other than the similar timeframe and the material being covered, there is almost nothing similar between the two classes. The group we have now is much larger than last time around. I attribute this to the ever increasing world of craft beers and the people who are discovering them. This group also is a little more “chatty” in that they are more free and willing to offer their opinions on beer than the last class I was in. It helps that there are multiple BJCP judges in the class to begin with as well as the majority of people are homebrewers.
Another thing that is different is that inbetween beers, we spend time reading outloud the BJCP specifications for the next style of beer we will be judging. The first time through, there was a lot of dead time between beers and if you wanted to read up on the next style, it was all on you. It’s very helpful that everyone is into sharing and reading outloud and that the other homebrewers interject anecdotal stories here and there to support whatever style we’re on. Sammy seems to learn more from the anecdotal stuff than from the actual study guide.
Unlike last time, I will not be doing a complete write up of all the beers we tasted. Instead, I’ll just give a brief list of the styles we covered and what I took away from it. This post is more catch-up as 3 sessions have already gone by.
If you are interested in reading about what beers we tried specifically for each style, leave a comment or shoot me and email and I will go back and amend this post to show what we drank for each style, in case you wanted to play along at home. : )
Week 1:
This, by far, is the worst session of all the sessions. We covered the American Lite Lager, Standard Lager, Premium Lager, and Munich Helles before switching gears a little and then tasting examples of a German Pilsner and Bohemian Pilsner.
While the European Pilsners were very good, I spent a good chunk just trying to get through this first day. The American Lager family is not my favorite group of beer styles. I find them to be shadows of their European counterparts and “subtly” flavored.
On the plus side, I am now more familiar with how pils malt tastes like. I just don’t drink enoug Pilsners to really familiarize myself but it’s all starting to click together now.
Week 2:
Finally, more flavorful beers. This week we covered the following beer styles: Vienna Lagers, Oktoberfest, Dark American Lagers, Munich Dunkel, Schwartzbier, Maibock/Helles Bock, Traditional Bock, Doppelbock and Eisbock. That’s alot of beers to have to taste and scrutinize. In case I haven’t told you before, having to judge a beer takes a lot of the joy away from enjoying a beer. You tend to over analyze things and it take a mental toll on you as well.
Despite all that, I walked out of class today with a greater understanding of what Vienna and Munich malt tastes like as well as the nuances between the styles. In the case of the Schrwartzbier, I rediscovered this style and it would seem the way I though about this beer was incorrect. I used to think a Schwartzbier was a lager version of either the porter or stout when in fact, it’s much more delicate and subtly complex than either two.
Week 3:
Last night the group was able to delve into a set of beers many in the class was highly anticipating: the pale ales. We covered the following beer styles: Standard/Ordinary Bitter, Special/Best/Premium Bitter, Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale), American Pale Ale, American Amber Ale, English IPA, American IPA and finally, Imperial IPA. As you can imagine, we went through a lot of beers.
What was most interesting about this week’s class was that we had some homebrewed beers to try as well as commercial versions. As much as I enjoy drinking commercial versions, the true value of the class doesn’t appear until we begin to sample and judge homebrewed beers. Unless they’ve been stored in the most horrible of conditions, commercial examples tend to be in good shape and finding any flaws becomes difficult. You can nitpick them to death but sometimes, you’re just never sure as any flaws have been minimized greatly.
Having homebrew examples on the other hand, opens up into a completely different world of tasting. Because many homebrewers do not have professional equipment the flaws in their beers, if any, are more noticeable and soon the group is all on the same page. All of a sudden, we all know what “oxidized” tastes like. That’s a cool feeling when you look around the room and the proverbial “lightbulb” is lit above all of our heads.
Specifically talking about myself, I realize that I do not drink enough English beers to really call myself an expert on the subject matter, let alone knowledgeable. It’s one thing for me to read about the style characteristics and quite another to recognize them on my tongue or in my nose. American Pale ales and IPA I’m good with but I still have a lot of work to put in to understand English ales (German lagers, Scottish and Irish ales by extension).
