Hogtown BJCP Exam
By Mark Tumarkin
For many months now, the BJCP Study Group has been meeting at Dave Perez's house the Sunday afternoon following our monthly club meeting. Each month, this band of beer lovin' fools has met to judge some beers and study the BJCP style guides and other related materials. They got a lot of real experience by judging our monthly style competitions along side some of the club's BJCP judges. I think this has given them confidence in their skills and a better understanding of the judging process than most novice test-takers. Hopefully, all that hard work and time will pay off with a new group of judges for the club. Dave P, Dr. Bob, Jim R, Fred and Bruce all made it through the study group process to take the big exam. I re-took the tasting part, hoping to boost my score a bit.
The BJCP exam is a serious undertaking. It is a three hour exam with ten essay questions and four beers to evaluate. Dave said he was more stressed out by it than by either his master's or licensure exams. I remember George P had said something similar. And the process isn't over yet. It will probably be eight weeks or more before the results come back. Jeff Gladish, who came up from Tampa to give the exam, will make copies of all the tests papers and ship them off to several graders around the country. Once they have been graded, the exams will be checked by the BJCP Eastern Exam Director, and then by the National Exam Director. A lot of time and effort goes into both taking and grading these exams. So keep your fingers crossed, everyone, let's hope that everyone passed and Hogtown Brewers will have a new group of certified beer judges.