As indicated in the first post, becoming a certified beer judge with the BJCP is surprisingly complicated. Needless to say, this won't be a dissertation on the history or the past structure of the examination process: the current iteration begins with an online entrance examination – a 180 question, 60 minute, open-book test requiring an understanding of the BJCP, brewing fundamentals, flaws, and the variety of styles found in the guidelines. It is pass/fail only, and you don't receive any detailed score when you finish.
The BJCP provides a study guide for the examination process (including the Judging Exam and the Written Exam), and it should go without saying that you should be intimately familiar with the contents of that document. In addition to providing a wide breadth of substantive information, it includes a detailed breakdown of the types of questions, and the categories of questions, found in the exam. You'll face three types of questions on the BJCP Entrance Exam:
- 112 True/False questions. Example: T/F - Decoction mash is the preferred brewing method for Dunkles Bock. While each Entrance Exam is (ostensibly) different, pulling a random selection of questions from a pool of thousands, I faced a significant number of questions about decoction mashing.
- 44 Multiple Choice Questions. Example: A beer with a notable green apple aroma most likely has which flaw? (a) DMS, (b) Phenolics, (c) Acetaldehyde, (d) Tannins, or (e) Fusel alcohols.
- And 24 Multiple Choice/Multiple Answer Questions. Each of these questions on the Entrance Exam begin with the phrase “Check all that apply.” Due to their format, these questions will be the most difficult you'll face. Reading and processing them will take the most time, and you do not receive partial credit. If you get 3/5 of the answer right, you get it all wrong. Example: Check all that apply. Which of the following wort production techniques could results in cardboard character? (a) Decoction mashing, (b) Exposing the grain bed to air during sparging, (c) Acidifying sparge water, (d) Splashing the chilled wort when transferring to a fermenter, and/or (e) Avoiding the use of a protein rest.
Of the 180 questions, you'll find 20 questions about the BJCP Program/Ethics (all True/False), 36 questions about Beer Characteristics, and 32 questions about Process and Ingredients. The remaining 92 questions are ripped straight from the BJCP Style Guidelines, demonstrating how important that topic is, and it includes comparing and contrasting different styles.
Clearly, an applicant could spend months studying and internalizing the entire BJCP Study Guide and the Style Guidelines before taking the Entrance Exam, but that's not really necessary. I certainly didn't. The following are my tips - what I did, and how I did it - to passing the Entrance Exam.
- Memorize the BJCP Program/Ethics Questions found in the Study Guide. The Study Guide includes a list of 124 True/False questions on the BJCP Program/Ethics, and your Entrance Exam will have 20 of these questions, verbatim. The entire Exam is a time crunch, so you should be able to read and respond to these questions in an almost Pavlovian fashion. Use them to get an easy 20 points and earn back some time for the harder questions.
- Have a working knowledge of Beer Characteristics, Process, and Ingredients, all of which (as necessary for the Exam) should be found in the Study Guide. These questions amount to approximately 1/3 of the Entrance Exam, and you should be able to answer these without much resort to other materials. But you should probably have a copy of the one-page Beer Fault List printed out and at the ready, just in case.
- Familiarize yourself with the first 26 Categories of beer from the Style Guidelines. Don't memorize it, but be familiar with it. You're going to come across questions like T/F -A German Helles Exportbier always has higher hop bitterness than a German Pils that you're probably not going to know unless you've memorized the entire Style Guidelines, but having a familiarity will help you with many questions.
- Take the practice exam! It's important to understand the online exam system and how it works, plus it will give you a better idea of the exact nature of the questions you'll be facing.
- While you're on the CourseWebs page, buy the Entrance Exam. It'll cost you $10/Exam, or you can buy a 3 pack for $20 (knocking $10 off the total). I went with the 3 pack and passed on the first try; I'm kicking myself a little for that, but I figure the extra $$ went to a charitable organization, so I'm not too upset.
- When taking the Entrance Exam, you should have a few documents at the ready. Mine included (a) the BJCP Study Guide open to the Beer Characteristics section, along with (b) the above-mentioned Beer Fault List. I also made and printed (c) a spreadsheet of the beer styles found on the exam, in alphabetical order, including their overall description and low/high values for IBUs/SRM/OG/FG/ABV. This was invaluable in quickly looking up answers to many style questions, including comparing and contrasting these values - which would be an easy way to answer the True/False question in #3, above!
- Use BeerSyndicate's "Style Compare-O-Matic" for the more difficult questions. This tool allows you to select between one and three beer styles, and immediately pulls up all their information, one next to the other, with some notable parts bolded. It should be obvious how helpful that would be on the Entrance Exam, so don't hesitate to use it. And, obviously, try it out before taking the Entrance Exam for real, as you should be comfortable with using it beforehand. You'll also need to make an account (for some reason), so be sure to do that. I was fortunate to have a dual-monitor setup when taking the exam, allowing me to have this tool open on one screen with the exam on the other, so you should practice with whatever setup you'll be using to make sure you're proficient and not wasting precious time.
The Final Tip
There are probably two schools of thought on this, so take this tip with a large grain of salt. When you're taking the exam, you'll be able to "mark" questions for follow-up1, so you can put down an answer but note that you're not sure about it. If/when you make it to the end, you'll be shown a summary screen that tells you each question you did not answer, and each question you "marked" for follow-up, so you can easily go back to them. I call this Delay and Pray. Clearly, however, if you don't make it to the end because you've run out of time, this feature will be useless to you.
So what's the alternative? Know as you Go.
I know this will sound comical or pretentious, but my advice is to use your precious time and the above-mentioned resources to make sure you get the right answers the first time around. There's no excuse for missing a question about color, or bitterness, or FG/OG/ABV, or BJCP Ethics if you've memorized the questions from the Study Guide and you have my spreadsheet open in front of you. Those are all points you should score, and you should not need to follow-up on them. Alternatively, if you guess, or do not confirm as you go, you just have to pray you make it to the end and have sufficient time to go back and check your answers. That is time-consuming, and it's wasteful. You only need to get 116 questions right to pass the test - why not make it within the first ~116? Of course, this is not to say that you shouldn't mark some questions for follow-up. Those Multiple Choice/Multiple Answer questions? Definitely check those off if you have any doubts on them, and you'll be able to come back to them quickly if you make it to the end with time to spare. My main point here is simply not to rely on the "marking" feature, because it's a crutch that will only work for you if you finish the test with extra time, and if you don't use it sparingly, you'll just end up with an entire exam that you'll need to go back over. But, of course, you need to do what works for you - this is just what worked for me.
1. I'm not going to detail the "how" of this; when you take the practice exam, you'll see how it works.
