As part of my quest to become a BJCP certified beer judge, I signed up to steward the 2017 Champlain Valley Fair Homebrew Competition on August 26, 2017. I hadn’t seen a competition in situ before, and I believe it would be useful to see how the events are organized and run. Further, I could […]
For better or worse, our eighth study session (for Category 12) was feeling a little bit… improv. A little bit fast and loose. Or as Erin put it: Really great discussions and tastings at tonight’s BJCP Study Group. Sort of a weird, random, catch-all category (Pale Commonwealth Beer), punctuated by a finale of “…and this […]
After the whirlwind that was last time, study group session #7 covered a single and (allegedly) stylistically narrow category: the British Bitters.
Session #6 of our BJCP study group combined two categories that almost everyone who drinks craft beer in the United States should be pretty familiar with. With the exception of a couple of odd ball sub-styles (looking at you, Red IPA), we somehow managed to do a tasting run of nearly every flavor the two […]
For study group #5, we stuck with the bitter European beers and tackled Category 7. Similar to last time, examples in this category turned out to be difficult to find — and the ones that our coordinator did find were all brewed in the United States or Canada. Regardless of their country of origin, we […]
Reconvening on cadence, our BJCP study group jumped from Category 2 to Category 5. 1 Right off the bat, our coordinator let us know that these beers turned out to be fairly difficult to find commercial examples of — which was to say, only 2 of the 4 would get the professional treatment that night. […]
Our BJCP study group reconvened on cadence, this time to cover Category 2. Two brief asides about that: first, that our main BJCP mentor recommended against going in straight category order, and instead to choose the styles based on the season, meaning to hold off on those stouts and bocks until it got cooler 1; […]
Following our successful introductory session, our BJCP study group re-convened two weeks later 1 to cover Category 1: Standard American Beer. After a quick round of group business, we launched right into the structured evaluations. That’s our cadence![↩]
I’ve decided to become a BJCP judge. In other words, I’ve decided to learn about the 34 beer categories (and their many sub-styles) recognized by the BJCP, about structured evaluations, about brewing ingredients and process and technique, about off-flavors and contaminants. I’ve decided to subject my palate to so-neutral-they’re-flavorless American Light Lagers and the sometimes-pleasantly-sometimes-punishingly […]