Certified here B0849. Working toward National.
But some would say I am cerifiable! 
Good luck, Goose. I took the written exam a couple years ago, but scored a couple points shy of what I needed - be sure to manage your time - I ran out Due to taking too much time on the recipe. I scored Master level on that part but bombed the last section as no time remained. Better to give a rough answer and leave time to come back to fill in more as time allows, than to have a minute to finish an entire question… I don’t write legibly, either, so the graders probably had a hell of a time reading my handwriting.
I have heard that from a lot of people including one of the locals that scored high enough to become National. When I took the legacy written exam, I also spent way too much time of the recipe (got Master as well on that question). I won’t make that mistake again. Don’t need as high a score on the written this time as I scored an 86 on the last tasting exam, but will shoot for as high a score as I can get! This is my winter project this year.
You will do well I am sure. If there weren’t a time limit on the test, I could have written master level stuff across the board, but time is part of the test. It was worthwhile putting in the study time, because I learned so much in the process and had it down cold…if only I had learned to write legibly and quickly! I can hear the voice of my second grade teacher giving me that D in penmanship “Someday you’ll regret not writing more neatly!” Haha, she was right.
One improvement on the test would be to allow typing it, but I see the inherent concerns over cutting and pasting.
You say, you have refined sense of taste, which implies smell, as taste and smell make for flavor (we only taste sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umami).
If you say refined, you know what you can detect well, and what you are weak on or what you are blind to. For example, I’m not sensitive to Diacetyl at low levels, others are. Do you know that there are people, maybe 20%, that are flavor blind to it?
I know someone who is an advanced Cicerone with really great sensory abilities. It was a shock to find a complete blindness to chlorophenol.
The point here is that we are all flavor blind to certain compounds. That is why judging is done in at least pairs of judges. Larger breweries have tasting panels, where the panel members have been tested, and they make sure the flavors they are screening for are not missed.
Why am I rambling on about this? You can always get more input. Joining a club and having the experienced judges critique my beers helped. Entering competitions helped my beers improved. BJCP helped me improve my beers.
Hope this helps.
Very informative. My diacetyl threshold is low, and I can pick it up in the smallest concentrations. Certainly there are things that I might be blind to, but not really certain what it might be.
As a hobby, I am an amateur chef, and enjoy cooking for large groups. Beer brewing is not unlike cooking. And yes, the olfactory senses play a major part in tasting. That’s why my first action is to check the aroma of the beer…well, I look at it first to check the clarity. Then check the aroma.
My aroma check goes back to my elementary school days, when I would always check the aroma profile before I would take a bite of any food. Yes, it was annoying to my parents!
Not being a beer “snob”, but my taste senses are pretty good. Better in fact than most of my friends.
So the large beer contests have a panel of tasters? I did not know that, thinking one judge would sample one entry of beer. So only one person would award the scores, and make comments.
We plan to enter the Bluebonnet next year. With multiple entries of the same exact beer.
Generally there are 3 judges per table judging flights of the same style. Then multiple tables. You might find it informative to volunteer to steward at a comp sometime.
So…3 judges tasting the German Pils style in general, or 3 judges sampling each individual entry so you have 3 people who will each ultimately score your beer?
Versus one judge scoring your entry?
In most of the competitions I have judged, there are flights of 6 to 12 beers of the same or similar styles. One bottle of each is opened for a pair of two judges who fill out score sheets then discuss their comments and scores. The top three in that flight are either awarded medals or chosen to move on to the next round.
Flights are limited in the number of beers to prevent palate fatigue. So, if you have say 30 pilsnero entered they might be divided between maybe 3 tables 10 beers to each with 3 judges at each table. So, yes, you have 3 judges scoring your beer.
I tried to get certified years ago when I was more active in clubs and competitions. I passed the online test and then wasn’t able to secure a seat for the in-person testing because they were always filled too far in advance where I lived back then (bay area around 2011-2014). Honestly, I looked into it a while back, but the testing process is just too much of a hassle still. I suppose I could’ve done it while I was living in Portland, but I wasn’t really into the club/competition scene there, so I never bothered. Now in this the Central San Joaquin Valley there are no clubs and there is no scene.
Two judges required per flight on BJCP competitions. Mini is will have senior judges from the flights in that category. BOS will 3 or more top ranked judges.
While BJCP is certainly focused on judging, and esp to arbitrary style guidelines, I honestly feel like it made me a much better brewer. While the path is difficult (and it should be), the study and focus on avoiding off-flavors and hopefully a more honest and critical evaluation of my own beers and meads are all positive.
I also have a better idea when finishing a product of how it will present to a judge, especially in mead.
i know im kind of counting on certain posters who are thankfully dedicated to this forum, but i think this is a generally superior homebrew forum than others, though less active.
i really appreciate the advice/opinions as they are most often couched in professional and/or extensive experience. so i try to give the best advice i can here.
i think one or some of you know that i was banned from another forum that shall remain nameless.
Grand Master III here.
I became a judge to improve my palate and better understand what I was tasting (and smelling, etc).
I was brewing what I thought were decent beers, but after taking the training and going through all the classes,
I learned so much that I didn’t know I didn’t know. My beers improved a lot, and it definitely made me a better brewer.
On the topic of “palate holes”, it’s very true, and it goes both ways. I’m particularly sensitive to phenolics, sulphur, and diacetyl, but I have a high threshold for picking up oxidation, and isovaleric acid is tasteless to me. Tom Schmidlin can’t find diacetyl even at high levels. I let whoever I’m judging with know that, and ask them about their strengths and weaknesses so that we can kind of cover for each other when we are judging. Finding those sensitivities and holes is an important part of learning to judge. I’d try to point them out to examinees if their writeup indicates a mismatch when grading an exam, too. It’s become a standard part of the RTP (exam grading report) to list them now, but it wasn’t always the case.
It’s true that many competitions have a hard time finding enough qualified judges, and that hurts us all. Entrants get a bad experience, and the volunteers feel overwhelmed. We made it a point up here in WA to increase our judge pool. I’ve personally taught, administered, and proctored the exam many times. The only way to make things get better is to pitch in and help.
Oh, and as far as Mini-BOS and BOS tables go, the best beers really do float to the top in my experience. The difference between the top few is very small usually. But, I’ve never walked away from a BOS table where I thought the beer that won wasn’t a contender (regardless of if the one I thought should win didn’t). I try to call them as I see them, and if the others disagree, that’s fine, I’m not going to make a stink over it.
Once homebrew Con gets going again you might try to register for a testing session at that event. There is usually a lot of time to register for it and you should bee able to get in. Plus it gets you to attend the event which is very informative and a lot of fun!
Just a thought.
That is what I thought before I sat for the written and taste exams on the fly. I worked as a steward for a contest shortly after I re-entered the hobby. I was made aware during that event that there were two open slots for the next tasting exam the following weekend due to last minute cancellations. I had so much fun working as a steward that I signed up for the tasting exam with gusto. I passed the written part with no problem. However, I had my backside handed to me during the tasting exam. I scored a 69, which was one point less than I needed to become a “Recognized” judge. At that point in time, I did not realize how difficult it was to do that well without any preparation whatsoever. I passed the tasting exam high enough and had amassed enough judging points to be ranked as a “Certified” next time I sat for it, but the moral of the story is that anyone who believes that he/she can walk into the tasting exam without any preparation and pass it is either incredibly gifted or delusional. The bar for being a ranked BJCP judge is not as low as many assume it to be.
The tasting exam requires both taste perception and description. Believe it or not, you can be very proficient in one, but not in the other. As we age our perception weakens, just like eyesight and hearing, but the vocabulary can become second nature. As to younger judges, they usually perceive subtle nuances better than me, but need some coaxing on better descriptors at times. As with anything, experience helps bring things together. I took a six month class before taking the tasting exam and it helped immensely, as did reading the Zymurgy commercial calibration column archives to see how the high ranking judges evaluate tasting samples.
I would like to add as that local contests are not like NHC where there are Grand Masters all over the place. As a Certified, I used to run flights. There would be people from Recognized all the way down to non-BJCP judges on my flights. Becoming a ranked BJCP judge is a process for most people. I stopped judging because I did not like having to judge really bad beer, a few of which I had to disqualify from judging due to concerns over contamination. Sure, there are good beers and great beers being judged at most contests, but a lot of beer is submitted to contests by beginning brewers for judges to debug so to speak. You would not believe how poor sanitation is in some home breweries. You know that sanitation is going to be low when a repurposed bottle still has the original brewery’s label on it and the claimed beer style is not the style on the label. That should disqualify a beer, but a few slip through the cracks.
I was mostly flagged on how I described the faults the first time I sat for the tasting exam. I identified all of the faults correctly, but I did not elaborate on them well enough. That is why it is important to not go into the tasting exam without any preparation whatsoever.