Archive for the 'Beer Education' Category

A Chat with a Cicerone

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Somewhat of a short post this time around. Sammy and I are going to a Belgian Beer Dinner Friday night at the Lafayette Park Hotel. The dinner is at the Duck Club Restaurant and was developed in tandem by Chef Chuck Courtney and Cicerone Nicole Erny, who you may recognize from the Trappist.

I was able to interview Nicole about the event. She goes into some depth regarding the Cicerone program, putting the dinner together and pairing beer with food. I wrote this for Beer Connoisseur magazine so head on over there to read it in its entirety.

Click here to read A Chat with a Cicerone at Beer Connoisseur.

BJCP Prep Class starting soon in Los Altos

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

The BJCP stands for Beer Judge Certification Program. The purpose of the BJCP is to:

  1. promote beer literacy
  2. promote the appreciation of real beer, and
  3. recognize beer tasting and evaluation skills

BJCP Grandmaster-level judge John Watson has organized another BJCP prep class. I’ve taken John’s prep class in the past, twice actually. As a craft beer lover, it was the best thing I ever decided to do. Not only did I learn a lot about craft beer in general, I learned a lot about the various styles in the BJCP style guideline. I had no idea there were over 70 recognized styles!

I would highly recommend this BJCP prep class to homebrewers and to anyone who is interested in craft beer. Even if you decide to never take the BJCP exam, you will get more out of this class than you expect. Here are the details:

Who: BJCP Grandmaster-level judge John Watson
What: BJCP Prep class
Where: More Beer homebrew shop, 991 N. San Antonio Road, Los Altos, CA 94022 map
When: First class is on Thursday, January 28, 2010, 6:30pm - 10pm
Why: Because it’s cool to be a beer geek
Cost: $135 ($20 deposit at the shop) for an 11 week course

Beer Appreciation 101 has been approved for SF Beer Week!

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

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Beer Appreciation 101

Update: There have been a lot of phone calls to Wine Affairs asking about the event but when they find out it’s on Superbowl Sunday, they can’t commit. I totally understand. Superbowl Sunday is an American Institution. It’s practically a holiday.

So I’ve talked to Diane at Wine Affairs and I’m letting you know, “We hear you.” We’ve listened to your feedback and we’re pushing the event back a week. Hopefully reservations will pick up. The updated information is below, I hope to see you there!

Venue: Wine Affairs, 1435 The Alameda, San Jose, CA 95126 map

Date/Time: Sunday, February 7 14, 2010 @ 5pm - 7pm

Reservations: Call 408-977-0111 to reserve your spot today.

Cost: $25 per person

Description of the Event:

With the explosion of the popularity of American craft beers and imports, it can be confusing trying to make sense of it all. Dubbels, Imperial IPAs, Barrel-aged brown ales brewed with sour cherries? Where to start?

Join the BetterBeerBlog’s Peter Estaniel (that’s me!), BJCP judge, beer writer and homebrewer, as he tries to make sense of it all. Expect a general overview of the brewing process and how the basic ingredients used in brewing affect a beer’s flavor. Develop your beer vocabulary while tasting beers that exemplify certain characteristics of each basic ingredient.

Contact Wine Affairs at 408-977-0111 to make your reservation today!

California State Homebrew Competition Pre-Lim

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

I had the opportunity to judge a preliminary round for the California State Homebrew Competition, better known in homebrew circles as Stern Grove, at Firehouse Brewery & Grill last night. Stern Grove holds a special place in many a homebrewer’s and BJCP judge’s heart for a variety of reasons. It is one of the oldest homebrew competitions in California. Stern Grove also signals the end of homebrew competition season. It is one of the last, if not the last, homebrew competition in California.

Judging Stern Grove is a bit of a departure from your typical BJCP/AHA sanctioned event. The biggest difference is the way the beers are scored. In a typical homebrew competition, beers are judged against a 50 point scale. Beers are evaluated according to aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel and overall impression. Because the competition has been around for so long, Stern Grove has it’s own competition forms. They’re not really trying to be different from your typical BJCP event more than they’ve been grandfathered in.

The Stern Grove worksheets are evaluated on a 20 point scale. This poses a slight conversion issue for judges in the sense that a point given or taken away from a Stern Grove worksheet will have a greater impact than your typical BJCP score sheet. That being said, it takes a little bit getting used to.

Most homebrew competitions will have preliminary rounds. This allows the judges to cull the field of entries, weeding out the stronger ones from the entries that need a little more work. By the time the final rounds of judging at Stern Grove actually takes place, the majority of the beers there will be pretty good.

In last night’s preliminary round, we had the opportunity to judge the wheat beer category. There were 3 judging groups. Two of the groups had 3 judges while the final group had only 2. Unlike other preliminary rounds I’ve judged at, we actually had 2 stewards to help us out. Big thanks goes stewards Bobby and Anthony for keeping things fluid.

There were a few issues that kept cropping up as the night wore on. Weizen beers are supposed to be lighter, effervescent, refreshing and flavorful. Yeast character needs to be the dominant, yet balanced, character in a weizen beer. Just about all the entries we tried were lacking banana esters and clove phenolics. In their place were generic fruit esters slightly reminiscent of Belgian yeasts while the phenolic character was equally generic and varied from spicy to plastic/band-aid. Body was an issue as well as many beers were watery while other samples were undercarbonated. Surprisingly a few beers were clear and lacked the “mit hefe” cloudiness one would expect from the style.

To bring out more of the weizen yeast character, start with a viable weizen strain of yeast and then ferment one’s beers at a slightly higher temperature (70º F +). Having a thin body in a hefeweizen is unusual since the addition of wheat malt is usually the prescription for thickening up a beer’s body. For the hefeweizen though, the brewer can implement a decoction mash to both thicken up the body and darken the beer slightly to get a gold color. Wheat malt will also help with head retention. When bottling beers, make sure to measure out one’s priming sugar correctly. Weizen beers are noted for their effervescent character and a flat beer is not a good sign. Lastly, always be mindful of one’s sanitation.

It was good to get back on the beer judging horse. It had been at least 6 months or so since my last competition. I may have been a little rusty with filling out score sheets and with my descriptions but my palette’s been okay. For whatever reason, I haven’t been all that interested in judging competitions this year. You could probably count on one hand how many competitions I’ve judged. What’s ironic is that I received my BJCP exam results (I retook the tasting portion of the exam) and I moved up a rank. There’s always next year.

Belgian Beer School: What are Dubbels and Tripels?

Friday, September 11th, 2009

This weekend, the awesomeness that is The Trappist will be transformed from Belgian beer bar to Beer School. Up on the cirriculum: Dubbels and Tripels. BetterBeerBlog friend, and Trappist bartender extraordinaire, Nicole Erny will be hosting this class along with local homebrewing phenom Nathan Smith. Here are the details:

Location: The Trappist, map
When: Saturday, September 12, 2009 @ 2:00pm OR Sunday, September 13, 2009 @ 4:30pm
Cost: $35 per person. Reservations Required.
RSVP: nicole@thetrappist.com

What are Dubbels and Tripels? This is one of the most frequently asked questions at the Trappist, but the answer is not so simple. I hope you can join us on September 12th or 13th to explore the origins of these classic Belgian styles.

Belgian Beer School is a Series of tasting sessions led by Nicole Erny, bartender at the Trappist, and Nathan Smith, homebrewer extraordinaire. Each class features 6 generous samples, a full pour of any of the 25 beers on draft, snacks, and a wonderful afternoon of beer!

To reserve your spot, please send an email to Nicole@TheTrappist.com with your name, the date you prefer, and the number of people in your party.

We will be there on Sunday. Hope to see some of you there!

Upcoming BJCP Exam Prep Course

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

I received word from BetterBeerBlog friend and Mad Zymurgist Brian Cooper that a BJCP Exam Prep Course has been scheduled and is coming up. For those of you interested in becoming a BJCP judge, this is a great course to take. I know the people who are scheduling this prep course and this class will have a huge emphasis on passing the exam. There will be beer provided for the tasting portion but I am not sure how many. Instead of retyping the details, I’ll just copy and paste them below.

The course is planned for Wednesday evenings from 7/22 to 9/23 (6:30 PM to 9:30 PM). Classes will be held in the Livermore / Pleasanton area.  We’ve lined up several great instructors for the course so far, including David Teckam, Kevin Pratt, Nathan Smith, Jim Files, and others.

The fee for the prep course + exam is $75; this includes full exam fee, certain study materials, quizzes graded weekly, and some of the beers for the course.  The exam will be held on 10/3, from 12 noon to 3PM in Pleasanton. If anyone is looking to take the exam for the first time (or to improve their existing score), I would be happy to send a syllabus.

If you’re re-taking, naturally the course fee would be lowered.  Please contact me at brewerbrian@sbcglobal.net if interested. Let me know whether you’re taking the exam for the first time, or re-taking — and if it’s the latter, whether it’s a partial or full exam.

John Watson hits the big Five-Oh, crack open that Utopia

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

pouringSammy and I spent our Tuesday night celebrating the 50th birthday of our friend John Watson. John is a Grandmaster 2 level BJCP judge. What this means, simply put, is that John knows his beer. I first met John at the More Beer homebrew store up in Los Altos where he was teaching a BJCP prep/study group. Ever since then, we’ve seen him at the various Bay Area beer festivals and homebrew competitions. John is a soft-spoken man who loves his beer and gives back to the craft beer community by teaching others how to appreciate beer.

toastTo help celebrate his birthday a group of us, mostly homebrewers, all headed toward the mean streets of Sunnyvale to Firehouse Brewery & Grill where we had dinner and threw back a few pints. Firehouse brewmaster Steve Donohue was there to play host to our little group of homebrewers and craft beer lovers. He was even kind enough to pour his Hops on Rye (HOR), Velles Baltic Porter (Velles being the name of the beer) as well as the last little bit of his Belgian-style tripel.

steve_peterI’ve always stated that beer is a social beverage. The best beers often become that much better when you are able to share them with other people who can really appreciate them. It’s the truth. Even though it was his birthday, John was kind enough to whip out a vintage 2005 bottle of Samuel Adams much coveted Utopia beer. For those who aren’t familar with Samuel Adams Utopia beers, here’s a little background.

utopiaWeighing in at over 25% ABV (probably around 27%), Sam Adams Utopia beers hold the title of  “World’s Strongest Beer”. Utopia is a high gravity beer brewed with a wide variety of malts and hops with a “touch of maple syrup”. They then ferment the beer with two proprietary yeasts (one of which is a champagne yeast, I believe). The final product is actually a blend of different beers, some aged for up to 13 years, that came from bourbon, sherry, Madiera, brandy and Cognac. They didn’t mess around with this beer and at a MSRP of $100/bottle, you shouldn’t either.

Utopia, Samuel Adams, 27% ABV

2005To enjoy a Utopia is to enjoy all of it, especially the bottle. The bottle is copper colored and shaped to resemble a copper brew kettle. The “Sam Adams” name is on one side while a portrait of Paul Revere (why Paul Revere and not Sam Adams?) is hidden behind two “doors”. The bottom of the bottle lists what year it was bottled and what bottle number you have. The Utopia we had last night was from 2005 and was #01824. Beneath the lid is a crown cap.

closeUtopia pours out a light caramel brown in color with no head. The beer is too high in alcohol to even hold a head. Even before putting the beer to our noses we can already smell the alcohol. Despite the high alcohol level of the beer, the Utopia had the most amazing aroma. It was a mix of caramel with maple syrup undertones as well as some oak notes, vanilla, slight spiciness and a walnut-like sherry character. Because of the volatility of the higher alcohol, the aroma never faded and remained strong long after the last drop ws consumed. It’s hard to nurse a 1-ounce pour but we all tried our hardest. The Utopia had the most amazing malt flavor that was composed of caramel, brandy, slight bourbon, walnut and sherry. You would think that a 27% beer would be a hot beer but that wasn’t the case. Instead, I was treated to a luxurious and velvety smooth mouthfeel with a noticeable but not hot or harsh alcohol warming. As I said, the beer is flat and it was about medium-high in body.

paul_revereUtopia definitely did not disappoint. I would purchase a bottle, or more, of this beer just to hold on to for special occasions. I think this beer is that special and I only hope the positive experience I received carries onto every bottle. While I could drink this beer alone, this is definitely a beer worth sharing with good friends who can understand and appreciate this beer.

Happy Birthday again, John! Thanks for bringing out the Utopia and sharing with us. There are more pictures from his dinner that you can see on my Facebook page. Won’t you be my friend?

2009 National Homebrew Conference

Monday, June 15th, 2009

The National Homebrew Conference (NHC) is happening this week, running from Thursday (6/19) through Saturday (6/20). This event is not unlike many of the other conferences you may have attended for business, only it’s beer related. I will be attending NHC this year primarily because it’s in my backyard. Because I registered for the event months ago, I’ve had it out of my head until this week. But now that I’ve had the opportunity to take a look at the Conference Schedule, I’m pretty excited.

While registration will officially begin on Wednesday, the actual conference and sessions will not begin until Thursday. Here’s a tentative list of sessions I plan on attending.

Thursday

  • Wood Aging with Matt Brynildson of Firestone Walker.
  • Brewing Great German Lagers: Finding the perfect balance of traditional and modern techniques in your brewery with Michael Ferguson of BJ’s Restaurants.

Friday

  • Great Brewery Tours Around the World: How to make the most of your beer travel experiences with Peter Symons
  • Funkification: A 100% Brettanomyces Spontaneously Fermented Mind Dump with Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River.
  • Mead Panel moderated by James Spencer with Charlie Papazian, Byron Burch, Curt Stock and Harold Culbransen
  • Going Pro Panel moderated by Justin Crossley with Tomme Arthur, Vinnie Cilurzo, Sean O’Sullivan, John Pinkerton and Keith Lemcke

Saturday

  • Troubleshooting Panel moderated by James Spencer wtih Tomme Arthur, Vinnie Cilurzo, Michael Ferguson and John Palmer.
  • All About Proteins… or how to get great head retention and more with John Palmer
  • Maintaining Ideal Yeast Health: Nutrients yeast need with Dr. Tobias Fischborn
  • Chocolate and Beer with Timothy Childs
  • Ingredients 5-10 with Tomme Arthur

This is just a tentative list and I may change what sessions I attend as I learn what each session will be about. I’m looking to learn a lot about brewing, the brewing industry, connect with fellow brewers and hopefully make meaningful connections with people. Here’s a link where you can view the rest of the speakers at the NHC.

As important as the actual sessions are, many attendees are mainly there for the social activities. Wednesday has a few pre-conference social experiences in the works, such as beer tours, MLB baseball game and a BJCP judge reception. Thursday night as the Pro-Brewers Night, which is basically a brew fest for homebrewers with many of the Bay Area local breweries, if not all, participating as well as breweries. Friday night features Club Night, where many local homebrew clubs get to show off their beers and skills. From what I’ve been hearing, none of the homebrew clubs I’m loosely affiliated with will be participating. Not sure why. Lastly, Saturday features a Grand Banquet and NHC Awards Ceremony. I’m hoping to have enough beer to have fun but not to much where I can’t remember all the good times. It’s a fine line that gets finer as I get older.

The Trappist

If you are a craft beer lover and have not yet visited the Trappist, you are missing out. I’ve written many posts in the past about this bar. They specialize in Belgian ale and have one of the best Belgian beer portfolios I have ever seen. They are my barometer by which I measure other Belgian beer bars really.

In honor of the NHC, the Trappist is having beer specials from Wednesday, June 17th through Sunday, June 21st where there will have ten special and rare beers on tap. Here’s the list:

  • Cantillion Kriek, 100% Lambic, 5% ABV - $7/5 oz
  • Allagash Hugh Malone, 8.5% ABV - $8/25 cl
  • Allagash Confluence, 7.5% ABV - $8/25 cl
  • Allagash Victor, 10.4% ABV - $8/25 cl
  • Allagash Victoria, 9% ABV  - $8/25 cl
  • Russian River Sanctification, 6.5% ABV - $8
  • Russian River Mortification, 10% ABV - $8
  • Russian River Consecration, 10% ABV - $10
  • Russian River Perdition, 6.1% ABV - $6
  • Russian River Benediction, 6.75% ABV - $8

In addition to serving all of those good beers, Duvel will be releasing Duvel Green on June 25th. Green is a “sessionable” Belgian golden ale that weighs in at only 6.8%. This is going to be an epic week of excellent beer. As I type this, I am getting more and more excited.

One last thing, BetterBeerBlog friends Beer by Bart, in conjunction with the Mad Zymgists, are holding a BJCP Beer 101 event where you can learn how to judge and appreciate beers similar to how a beer judge (like myself) would approach a beer. I helped them the last time they hosted this event and it was a blast and worth it. If they’re not yet sold out, you should check the event out. Here’s the registration page.

Without meaning to, this post got longer than expected. Thank you bullet points, ha! Anyway, if any of you will be attending, I’d love to meet up in between sessions, during lunch or at the various social events. You can contact me by leaving a message in the comments section and I’ll get back to you!

Hooray for beer!

NHC West Regionals Homebrew Competition Recap

Monday, April 20th, 2009

lodi beer companyThe National Homebrew Competition, put on by the American Homebrewer’s Association, is one of the largest, if not the largest, international homebrew competition in the world. This year there were over 5000 entries and I signed up for my opportunity to judge some of the entries. Last year, this event was held at Devil’s Canyon Brewing Company in Burlingame. At the time, Sammy and I were both stewards at the competition but this year, I was a judge and she was a steward.

kettlesThis year West Regionals were held at Lodi Beer Company in Lodi, California. From where I live, Lodi is about 1.5 hours away. With judging scheduled to start at 9:30am, Sammy and I were on the road by 7am. Even though it was a tough and long drive, we arrived in Lodi by 9am. I thought we were early but it would seem that half the judges were already there.

diningLodi Beer Company is a very nice looking brewpub. Once you walk in through the front doors, you are greeted by two copper brew kettles. Surveying the dining area further, you can see all the beer-related artwork up on the brick walls. The artwork is of their regular beer styles, in label form, painted on their brick walls. There’s a lot of decorative iron work throughout as well as ornate woodwork. Judging was being held in a backroom that served as dining overflow, I think. Even though the brew kettles are visible in the front, I believe the actual brewing is done downstairs in their basement.

judging roomAs a side note, the owners of the place are pretty good friends of BJCP Grandmaster Judge John Watson. From what John has told me, they all studied to be BJCP judge together. John went on to become a GrandMaster 2 judge while the owners decided they’d rather just make beer so they moved to Lodi and started a brewpub.

judgesRunning a competition of this size takes a lot of work and coordination. I’m probably forgetting a few people but here’s how a competition basically gets organized. There’s a competition organizer who organizes the entire event. There’s a site coordination that acts as a liason between the BJCP and the site of the competition judging. There’s a cellar master who handles and keeps the beers in optimal condition before and during the event. There are us judges who judge the homebrews, note our impressions and give feedback when applicable. Last but not least, there are the stewards who are lifeblood of the event. They take the beers to the judges and bring the beers back. They also pick up our scoresheets and double check our math. Without the stewards help, these competitions would run much, much more rough. Did I mention that all these people are volunteers? Yep, that’s right. None of us get any compensation for doing what we do. It’s all “for the love” and to help our fellow homebrewers improve their beers. Okay, I’m not being completely truthful, we do get some compensation in the form of food as Lodi Beer Company was kind enough to provide lunch for us as well as one free beer.

more judgesWe were informed that we would be judging two flights of beers today. The first flight was to consist of at least 11-12 beers while the second afteroon flight would be about 5-6 beers. As I’ve found over the past year, judging usually happens in groups of 3. 3 is a good number of judges to have as the third judge is kinda like the “tie-breaker”. Because of the large number of entries in this competition, we were assigned into juding pairs. Some of the styles with a higher number of entries may have gotten 2 judging pairs but, for the most part, each style got a single judging pair. Unlike competitions in the past, all beers, regardless if we had passed them onto the Best of Show (BOS) round or not, were capped. This adjustment was implemented to preserve the beers further. Unlike other competitions, there a very limited number of bottles to go around so we had to be judicious with our samples.

sourWe were assigned to judge various beer styles by the event coordinator. As names were being called out, I commented to a fellow judge that it seemed like we were getting drafted. To me, it felt like I was getting drafted into the NBA. You always want to get drafted into one of the more interesting styles, like Belgian Strong Ales or Sour Ales, and hoped to avoid other styles like American Lagers. I got “drafted” to judge the fruit beer category.

erikaFruit beers are an interesting bunch. A good fruit beer is an exercise in balance. You want to be able to taste the fruit in the beer without compromising the flavors or character of the base beer style. Some styles lend themselves to fruit additions better than others but in theory, all beer styles can have fruit added to them. Each judge is given a BJCP style guideline they can refer to during judging. The fruit beer style guideline basically says that a good fruit beer is balanced between the fruit character with the base beer character. As our judging group found out, this style guideline is woefully inadequate. Thankfully two of the judges brought their complete BJCP style guidelines for us to refer to. Considering that the beers we judged ranged from something as light as a Light American Lager all the way up to a Stout, these complete guidelines were a lifesaver.

Because none of the homebrewers have received their feedback yet, I don’t feel it would be appropriate to list the beers I had. I can say that the quality of beers a judge will be given is all about the luck of the draw. In my flight, the highest rated beer scored a 30. The other judging pair had a beers that scored 39.5, 37 and 33. I heard another judge say that for every high quality beer he had, had a corresponding bad beer. Unlike some of the other competitions I’ve judged, we all had to do a mini-BOS to decide what beers to pass onto the final round. Judging a BOS round is much easier than normal as we don’t have to re-score the beers. Judges take all the beers on the table and pretty much decide what beer best exemplifies the style, at least for a style BOS.

After our lunch break, I was reassigned to a different group. This time, I was drafted to judge Smoke and Wood-Aged beers. As with fruit beers, Smoke and Wood-Aged beers can have a wide variety. In this afternoon flight, we had 25 beers to judge, thankfully there were 4 judging pairs so the workload was equally distributed. My afternoon flight was much better than my morning flight but a lot of that had to do with the beer style versus the quality of beers. I think the highest rated beer of the afternoon for me scored about 33. As with the morning, the judging pair to my left had quite a number of good beers. The one thing that I found was a problem with judging this style was that some of the brewers didn’t list a base beer style for which we should be judging against. As per the rules, homebrewers were supposed to list what special ingredients they used. Some beers had just about everything listed except the base beer style. This makes judging difficult as we can say the beer was pretty good but at the same time, we could be judging from an incorrect premise. At the end of the day, we have to judge the beer on its own merits and truthfully, you can usually tell what the base beer is, well kind of anyway.

As with the fruit beers, smoke and wood-aged beers are difficult to make as well. Balance is a key, more so for wood-aged beers than smoked beers. Just like the fruit, you want to avoid the wood character from becoming dominant while trying to put enough in to be noticeable in the first place. Wood-aged beers are also interesting in that people add a bunch of different stuff in their beers to augment certain flavors. While I have no problem with this practice, I must say that balance is key. Personally, I like these secondary flavors to be a background note to the base beer style. Think of them as layers of complexity that are pulled back as the beer is allowed to warm and grow in sophistication. While it’s nice to notice things right off the bat, it’s also cool to discover things as you go along.

At the end of my second flight, I finally had the opportunity to cash in my one, free drink ticket for a Lodi beer. All throughout the day I have been surveying my fellow judges about the quality of the “house” beers. Unfortunatey I have to say reviews have been mixed. Some of the better beers were met with reserved praise (as in, “okay”, “eh” and “drinkable”) while the worst were generally noted to have some sort of defect or two or three. I ordered a doppelbock. Simply put a doppelbock is going to have a complex malt character and be very clean, meaning, it has no esters (fruit character). The malt character may be toasty but roasted is inappropriate. My doppelbock poured out like a soda. It sat in my pint glass with no head and a few bubbles clinging desperately to the side of the glass. It was essentially flat. While the beer was malty, it had a noticeable roasted malt character and a tart sourness in the finish. All who tried it agreed that it wasn’t a good example of the style. From what I’ve heard throughout the day, Lodi Beer Company were having some issues with “critters” but were able to get everything cleaned out to spec. I guess we were on the last couple of barrels  of the old stuff.

Sammy ordered the house framboise and liked it. It had the right color, flavor and tartness. Nothing mind-blowing but pretty good. In fact, I think most judges that day ordered the framboise. The one thing you can count on with a group of beer judges is that if there’s a good beer in the house, word spreads fast. As with many breweries I’ve had poor, initial experiences with, I will be visiting Lodi Beer Company again in the hopes that these out-of-style beers were just flukes. Call me a bleeding heart for being so forgiving but I like to try and support craft brewers.

recappingI would like to say that, overall, judging at the NHC West Regionals was a very good experience. I would like to thank Lodi Beer Company for allowing us to judge at their location. The food they served for us was good and we all appreciate it. Once things got going, the actual judging itself went smoothly after working out a few early hiccups. This is a testament to the stewards and organizing staff for keeping things going like a machine. Lastly, I’d just like to say to any homebrewer who is getting back a scoresheet from either myself or another judge. The BJCP is primarily an all-volunteer organization. My wife and I drove 1.5 hours up and back of our own accord and on our own dime to help support the homebrewing community. In fact, most of us did. We do this because we all love beer and we all would like to see the quality of homebrewing increase. Please keep this in mind when you receive your scoresheets. I can’t speak for any other judge but I do my best to give the most accurate and complete feedback I can get. This includes suggestions for improvement. I put my email on each and every scoresheet so feel free to email me, or any other BJCP judge, with any questions you may have.

Taking the BJCP Exam at Santa Cruz Aleworks

Sunday, April 12th, 2009

It’s rare for me to get up early on Saturday mornings. It’s enough that I have to get up early during the week for work, I don’t want to do so during my weekends. But today I made an exception. Of course, it’s beer related.

Sammy and I got up at at 7am to get ready to head over to Santa Cruz to take the BJCP exam. She had initially planned to take the BJCP exam but after failing miserably on the practice, she decided against it. As a BJCP judge, you are always welcome to retake that test to improve your ranking at a reduced price. As an added bonus for passing the first time, you can choose which part you want to take; the tasting or the written. Seeing as I haven’t really studied, I opted for the tasting portion.

Santa Cruz Ale Works was kind enough to open up the brewery and allow us to take the exam there. I had the opportunity to try their beers for the first time on Saturday. I will end up doing a Beer in Review on them at a later date but I will say that I enjoyed their pale ale and IPA. I think it’s always cool when pro-brewers open up their places for home brewers. Many pros often start out as home brewers and it’s great when they can share their professional experiences.

I’ve written about taking the BJCP exam before but I’ll paraphrase again. Taking the BJCP exam is an exercise in brute force memorization. The successful exam taker will be able to memorize a great deal of information (various beer styles) and build relationships between their sub-styles. The successful exam taker will have taken the practice exams to get used to writing things by hand. Computers make us a little dumb when it comes to writing things down but let me tell you first hand that your hands will cramp after writing for 3 hours straight.

With regards to the tasting portion, there is no substitute for experience. Doing well is a matter of learning the major points of each style. You have to train your palette to discern the flaws from the good stuff. The most important aspect of being a beer judge is to make recommendations to the home brewer as to how they can improve their beers. More often than not, home brewers enter their beers not because they’re looking to win but because they’re looking for feedback from their trained peers. It’s the feedback that home brewers really look for when they get their scores back. Once you’re familiar with a style, it’s pretty easy to figure out which is a good beer. The hard part is trying to figure out what’s wrong, if anything at all, and how to fix it.

I will be honest in saying that my tasting skills have been improved but it will be a lifelong effort to improve. There are some flavors I am still learning to recognize, there are still many flaws I am still learning to discern. I am constantly learning about home brewing and the brewing process so that I can give accurate feedback to those people I judge. In any event, I hope I did well enough to improve my ranking within the BJCP.

Below are some pics from the event. As always, let me know if you have any questions regarding anything I’m writing about. I will do my best to answer them and if I can’t find the answer myself, I’ll do my best to find out for you.

aftertest

proctors

sca_brewery

tastingroom