Wanna be a BJCP Beer Judge?

Here are some materials to help!

We ran a BJCP education class last night with the goals of providing an overview of what the BJCP is and giving guidance to help pass the online exam so that people can earn their Provisional rank.

Here you will find a packet of reference material including a fairly detailed agenda (with links and stuff) that may help some people here looking to take the online test, or just interested in what beer judging is.  The packet contains a great beer descriptor lexicon (by our very own Master II BJCP judge, Jim Wilson), Gordon Strong's essay on the procedure of judging a beer, the BJCP beer fault list, a spreadsheet of all of the current beer styles (SUPER useful for reference during the online exam) and two practice tests (written by one of our club members) which are similar to the online exam.

Here's a link to the packet.

Here's a direct link to the styles spreadsheet 

Here's my general advice if you wanna be a beer judge:

1. Sign up to judge or steward a competition.   The comps need your help and the very best way to learn is by doing. Start with our club competitons Doug King Memorial, Mayfair and the Los Angeles County Fair.  Also, here's the full BJCP Competition calendar.  http://bjcp.org/apps/comp_schedule/competition_schedule.php
2. Read the exam Study guide.  Maybe read it twice. http://bjcp.org/docs/BJCP_Study_Guide.pdf
3. Read the style guidelines.  Maybe read em twice.  Most of the online test questions come from that. http://bjcp.org/docs/2008_Guidelines.pdf
4. Check out the BJCP Exam Center.  It has those document and lots of other content to help you out: http://bjcp.org/examcenter.php
5. Take the online test.  Buy the three pack for $20 to take the stress off. Have the styles spreadsheet, the Exam Study Guide and the full style guidelines open for reference while you take it.  http://bjcp.coursewebs.com/
6. Sign up for a tasting exam. http://bjcp.org/exams.php

Good luck!