Yes, and having to drink up 5 gallons of beer before you can try your next batch is also an impediment.
I’ve invested $$ and time in my 5-6 gallon brew system, but if I had (could) to do it over I would go 2-1/2 gallon…for newbies reading this.
I’m fairly sure nobody said you can’t express your thoughts on this forum. Nobody is granted special permission here in " expressing their clearly false opinions because they have been granted a safe space to speak their opinions without fear of rebuttal." That’s just silly because: A/ no one has been granted a ‘safe space’ ( by whom?) to say things without rebuttal, and B/ there’s been a BUTTLOAD of rebuttal against numerous threads lately if you hadn’t noticed. All we DO ask is to disagree in a civil way and make it constructive and not nasty and personal. Seems fair to me.
My clearly unpopular opinion is that how well your grain is milled makes little difference. I shop at several different shops that and also have a mill of my own. There is an obvious difference in the crush depending which mill I use, but my preboil gravity is always close enough for homebrew. Never get a stuck sparge.
In regard to “cheating” on the on line exam… Are people talking about having someone else take it for another person, or having guidelines out to look at during the exam? The reason I ask is because almost every source of “Preparing for the BJCP Exam” TELLS you to have the BJCP guidelines handy to reference during the exam. I remember seeing that multiple places when I was researching and getting ready to take the exam a couple years ago… For instance:
This recent thread in this Forum: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=27098.0
Takes you to this page: How to Pass the Online BJCP Entrance Exam - Beer Syndicate
And one sections suggests that test takers do the following… (I saw this similar recommendation over and over, in links shared in this forum and on the pages of large, respect home-brew clubs). So… if this is the standard recommendation for taking the on line exam - what exactly constitutes cheating vs. “Being prepared and using your resources?”
2. Choose your Resources Carefully
For those of you wondering about the BJCP’s position concerning the use of various resources during the online Entrance Exam, here’s a quick note from the BJCP on the subject:
“This exam is implicitly open-book, which means that it is permissible to use the 2015 BJCP Beer Style Guidelines or other references as a sanity check or to resolve differences or similarities between styles. However, this does not compensate for lack of knowledge since it will be difficult to complete the exam if significant time is spent accessing and reading the references.”
The BJCP is certainly right about one thing: you will not have time to look up the correct answer for every question on the exam (unless you’re some sort of beer-obsessed supercomputer). And frantically scrambling through a cluttered up computer screen with a dozen different webpages that may or may not be relevant will only shave more time off an exam where every second counts.
With that in mind, if we could only choose three resources for taking the BJCP, it would be these:
A) The Beer Style Compare-O-Matic (Based on 2015 BJCP Style Guidelines)
B) The 2015 BJCP Study Guide
C) A second computer monitor
When it comes to the BJCP online Entrance Exam, the resources above are more useful than any book you could have, and (at the risk of offending Larry Page and Sergey Brin) are even more useful than Google.
So let’s talk briefly about why those things are the most useful.
The Beer Style Compare-O-Matic
Keep in mind that about 50-60% (or more) of the questions on the online exam deal with information found on the 2105 BJCP Style Guidelines, often times requiring you to accurately identify very specific details about two different beer styles. The Compare-O-Matic allows you to quickly isolate any two (or three) of the 2015 BJCP beer styles for immediate comparison, with key terms highlighted for easy use. Compare that to going back and forth on the 93 page BJCP Style Guidelines document to try to identify minor details about two different beer styles under time pressure.
For example, consider the following question which is similar to those you will find on the actual BJCP Entrance Exam:
True or False:
The color of an IPA ranges from medium gold to light reddish amber, while an American Pale Ale ranges from pale golden to light amber.
Go take a few minutes and check your answer using the 2015 BJCP Style Guidelines. We’ll wait.
Or, find the answer in a matter of seconds using the Beer Stytle Compare-O-Matic. [Screen shot below.]
The Compare-O-Matic is seriously effective and ridiculously easy to use. Oh yeah, and it’s free.
Of course, it’s important that you spend some time practicing using the Compare-O-Matic to become comfortable with quickly finding and comparing beer styles. To that end, we’ve developed a free 30 question BJCP Entrance Exam Mock Practice Test so that can you can get a feel for what the actual BJCP Entrance Exam is like and also get a chance to apply some of the things we cover in this tutorial especially playing around with the Compare-O-Matic to see why it’s so incredibly useful.
The 2015 BJCP Study Guide: About 30-40% of the Entrance Exam deals with information found on the BJCP Study Guide, so naturally it makes sense to have that document up for a quick reference. We can’t overemphasis that it is very important that you have prepared by carefully reading the entire study guide prior to taking the online exam so that you only need to double check things that you’re uncertain about.
The two major areas to focus on in the study guide are (1) information from the BJCP Judging Procedures Manual or all of the true-false questions beginning on page 18 of the BJCP Study Guide, and (2) the section on troubleshooting beer flaws beginning on page 59 of the Study Guide. But again, it is absolutely in your best interests to read the ENTIRE study guide and have a fairly good understanding and recollection of that material prior to taking the exam.
A Second Computer Monitor: Tiny smart phone screens are great for portability, straining your eyes and fooling around on Instagram, but not so good for taking an intense one hour exam that practically demands you have multiple webpages up at once. Two computer monitors allows you to have the exam up on one monitor and your references up on the other. Constantly toggling between screens on one single monitor only adds more stress to an already stressful exam, so if possible, strongly consider using two monitors when taking the exam.
I think Kutaka was referring to the original post in this thread which asked for no arguing. That being said, if they read the thread they would see there has been plenty of rebuttal to people’s opinion and, ironically, their clearly false opinion has been subject to rebuttal. So Kutaka, feel free to share which opinions are “clearly false”.
I brew lodo in Belgium. That’s sufficient to be labeled a lunatic.
I need to know those other styles. Often I have entries in the style I like to drink and brew, so I can’t judge the styles I know and like the best. So there is a reason to know all of the styles.
The BJCP knew when it created the online exam that some folks would treat it as open book. The idea was that if the time constraints are tight enough, searching for the answers would still take longer than allotted time would allow, so the best strategy is to actually learn the material. Ok, the Compare-O-Matic makes that concept moot. Congratulations! You passed a test by looking at the answers! Here’s your participation trophy! Enjoy!
The result is still the same point that people have been griping about. The old exam required people to know the styles, ingredients, and troubleshooting topics by heart. That doesn’t seem to hold in every case now.
As far as picking and choosing which styles you want to learn and become certified in, it sounds nice on the surface, but the logistics don’t scale. For example, how many different beers would an exam administrator need to serve so that he could satisfy all of the individual cases of “I’m studying this style but not that style”?
I also think it is very important to recognize that the BJCP is a volunteer-based organization. If there is something that you do not like about how it is operating, then you are welcome to get involved and do your best to change it. Everyone is doing it for free.
I could not imagine trying to run a competition using judges that couldn’t do whatever categories were needed to be judged. I think it’s hard enough to get enough certified judges to volunteer for a large competition, how would you plan a competition not know what categories you might later have qualified folks to judge? It just isn’t practical.
…we have a winner!
New England, Hazy or Juicy IPA’s are a fad that need to stay in 2016. Happy Brew Year.
I doubt that, I think they will be growing. I just had some Treehouse the other day and it’s special stuff. I think people’s palates are evolving to where they want boatloads of hops aroma/flavor without the tongue scaping bitterness of many American IPA’s and that’s what these beers deliver.
What do you think of Goliath?
Brasserie des geańts.
I’ve never had it but it says it’s all malt and Amber colored so I doubt I’d be interested.
I make a great Belgian Pale Ale. All malt and amber colored too.
I meant Tripel. I don’t want an amber colored, 9%, all malt Tripel. I don’t think I’d like the way the would taste.
Not sure how unpopular these opinions are but here’s an attempt:
1. Extract beer can be as good and better than all-grain beer.
2. Session IPA is really APA.
Makes me think my 15-20 gallon batches may be excessive…NOT!
Your 15-20 gallon batches are very much NOT excessive if you’ve got beer drinking, thirsty friends and family that can consume it. I, sadly, do not. Thrrefore I muusht drinskt alll tshat I cann to kerp my hooby going.