BJCP study group session number 10 convened around the Category 4 beers. But there was a little bit of a cliffhanger going into it as some last-minute shuffling happened when our scheduled coordinator had to back out. Nevertheless, we’re a scrappy and resourceful bunch, and we pulled it off with a complete complement.
Filed under “Best Laid Plans” and/or “Improvising” — our ninth study group session, intended for Category 19 (and coordinated by yours truly) got re-purposed, more or less at the last minute, for a… very special training session: Judging the 2017 GMM Style Challenge beers: 20C. Imperial Stout
At the confluence of my homebrewing and BJCP study group work, I found that I needed to deepen my knowledge of raw ingredients. Because hops are de rigueur pretty much all the time, I feel like I’ve gotten fairly well-acquainted with a number of varietals. And I spent most of my 2016 brew sessions experimenting […]
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; […]