BJCP Tasting Exam - Any Tips?

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Womball

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Gday All,

I sat and passed the BJCP entrance exam last week (passed on my second attempt.....). Any tips for the actual tasting exam? I'm sitting it in Feb. Busy trying to get all the style guidelines in my head at the moment.

Cheers,

Womball.
 
Hi womball, the Bjcp website has some examples of near flawless tasting notes that really helped me get an idea of how much info they wanted in the exam notes (a lot!). Other than that, just study the style guidelines as much as you can, practice taking notes on beers you are drinking and if you can, get a hold of a beer tainting kit to calibrate your pallet.
Cheers Snow.
 
Snow said:
Hi womball, the Bjcp website has some examples of near flawless tasting notes that really helped me get an idea of how much info they wanted in the exam notes (a lot!). Other than that, just study the style guidelines as much as you can, practice taking notes on beers you are drinking and if you can, get a hold of a beer tainting kit to calibrate your pallet.
Cheers Snow.
Thanks for the info Snow. Can I chime in and ask, hopefully still on topic, any recommendations you have for Beer Tainting Kit? I have seen two online, Aroxa (expensive) and Flavoractiv (not as bad, but still expensive). Cheers
 
I'm guessing I'm doing it with you Womball. From all the training so far knowing the actual styles is a very very small part of it.

Accurately describing, in detail, everything you observe is the No.1 thing.
 
Aroxa do a multiflavour one that is cheap. Will hunt when not on phone.
 
idzy said:
Thanks for the info Snow. Can I chime in and ask, hopefully still on topic, any recommendations you have for Beer Tainting Kit? I have seen two online, Aroxa (expensive) and Flavoractiv (not as bad, but still expensive). Cheers
Sorry Idzy, I don's have a lot of experience with purchasing the kits. Maybe PM Pocket beers for advice - he has bought them for our club inthe past.

Cheers - Snow
 
Members of the BJCP can purchase an off-flavour kit for $50USD from the BJCP website: http://www.bjcp.org/cep/kits.php

This is heavily subsidised as the kits normally cost a fortune. They come with about ~24 off-flavours with each flavour designed to spike 1L of beer.

Each exam location normally gets a free kit. I'm not sure if the kit would arrive by February (but you could try).
 
Practice. Drink as many different beers as you can (make sure there's quite a few poorly brewed examples in there too), & fill out judging sheets for each and every beer. Have the style guidelines with you, to become familiar with the terminology used & the expected traits you will be looking for. You need to be fast in the exam, & having your own beer tasting routine that you've practised is key to this

Study the style guidelines intensively- many styles have unique things about them you will be expected to comment on, & knowing what to expect can help determine what to look for.

Make sure you note and comment on things the beers lack as well- ie, no diacetyl detected, no dms etc. not just what you CAN detect.

Good luck!
 
Handsome Steve said:
Members of the BJCP can purchase an off-flavour kit for $50USD from the BJCP website: http://www.bjcp.org/cep/kits.php This is heavily subsidised as the kits normally cost a fortune. They come with about ~24 off-flavours with each flavour designed to spike 1L of beer. Each exam location normally gets a free kit. I'm not sure if the kit would arrive by February (but you could try).
Great idea but my study group sat the exam about 18 months ago and I'm still waiting for confirmation that the kits are available.

Aroxa were great to deal with, have free shipping outside UK and are very prompt.
I also had good experiences ordering direct from Siebel but bjcp let me down.
 
Handsome Steve said:
Members of the BJCP can purchase an off-flavour kit for $50USD from the BJCP website: http://www.bjcp.org/cep/kits.php

This is heavily subsidised as the kits normally cost a fortune. They come with about ~24 off-flavours with each flavour designed to spike 1L of beer.

Each exam location normally gets a free kit. I'm not sure if the kit would arrive by February (but you could try).
This looks like potentially a good option if I can get onto them. The basic uno aroxa kit is only 10 flavours and is 69 GBP. Anyone used these ones before?
 
When I was looking at alternatives to Siebel I remember emailing flavour-activ to see if they had anything suitable for small level craft beer enthusiasts. Unfortunately they never responded so it is good to see that they are now open to that market.

The uno kit is very good and very shelf stable (siebel is not and needs to be used ASAP). The siebel kit also contains a number of flavours that are quite rare including goaty (fascinating but I've never actually encountered it in any commercial or homebrewed beer). 69 GBP is a good price considering how many taints you can do - if you don't have a large group, you can mix up what you need and store the rest for between 9-12 months. Can't do that with siebel (you can store, refigerated but have much less time before the flavours dissipate). Additionally, there are no postage costs for aroxa - 69 GBP is the total price.

Main issue with the aroxa UNO is that it does not contain some of the very common ones, including acetaldehyde. We had a taint session at my brewclub and I had to order separate acetaldehyde, adding to the overall cost. They are easier to use than siebel though and the shelf life is important. UNO was the affordable one I was referring to earlier.

As mentioned above -any group booked in to sit an exam is eligible for a free siebel kit (you pay postage) from the BJCP but despite confirmation of contact from Kristen England at BJCP, I never heard anything further from our enquiry and had to order directly from Siebel instead.

The two major things you need to do to do well in the exam have been mentioned so I will just reiterate - taste and evaluate as much beer as you can and learn to describe what you taste in the appropriate language. Be as descritptive as possible, don't make stuff up and align flavours with causes (especially in relation to faults). Make no assumptions about how the beer is made (kit, grain etc) and use qualifiers such as 'if mashing, mash at a higher temperature for a more dextrinous, fuller bodied beer'. Write some judging sheets, volunteer to judge at a comp if there is one between now and then.

Setting up taint sessions is a great way to attune your palate to particular flavours and learning how to describe those. Remember you may, as an individual, have higher sensitivity to some and higher tolerance/thresholds to others.

Knowing the guidelines is important but having a decent understanding is sufficient. Being able to describe and elucidate is more important although you don't want to cane a bo-pils for a touch of dms but suggest it is acceptable in a dortmunder.
 
manticle said:
Great idea but my study group sat the exam about 18 months ago and I'm still waiting for confirmation that the kits are available.
They're definitely available. We received one for our most recent exam (free) and I was able to order one for the brewclub (cost me $50). They can be slow though.
 
IMHO don't worry too much about off flavours, you'll likely get one flawed beer. I would say first and foremost, learn to completely fill out a scoresheet describing what you taste, secondly you need a good overview of the styles to be able to give it a realistic score. Remember to write your thoughts about the aroma as the beer warms and make sure you give suggestions on how to improve the beer if you score in the 30s or lower. Buy some beers from Dans that you have never tried and practice filling out scoresheets without the style guide, use a timer so you can see how quickly 15 mins goes by.
 
Handsome Steve said:
They're definitely available. We received one for our most recent exam (free) and I was able to order one for the brewclub (cost me $50). They can be slow though.
Maybe they got a bit better at keeping up with demand. I waited ages and got nothing - it was down to the wire for our session timing but siebel came through - just cost 3 times the amount.

BD - we got two or three with ours - depends on the guy pouring the beers to an extent. Ours was a sadist.

Off flavour training is good because it trains you to examine and interpret what flavour it is that makes a beer taste wrong - just as you need to examine and interpret what makes a beer right. All part of training the palate and the brain to translate what the palate is tasting into worthwhile descriptions on paper. Even if the beer has no discernible off flavours, that ability to analyse and describe is essential.
 
training the palate and the brain to translate what the palate is tasting into worthwhile descriptions on paper. Even if the beer has no discernible off flavours, that ability to analyse and describe is essential.
Gold!
 
manticle said:
Maybe they got a bit better at keeping up with demand. I waited ages and got nothing - it was down to the wire for our session timing but siebel came through - just cost 3 times the amount.

BD - we got two or three with ours - depends on the guy pouring the beers to an extent. Ours was a sadist.

Off flavour training is good because it trains you to examine and interpret what flavour it is that makes a beer taste wrong - just as you need to examine and interpret what makes a beer right. All part of training the palate and the brain to translate what the palate is tasting into worthwhile descriptions on paper. Even if the beer has no discernible off flavours, that ability to analyse and describe is essential.
Two or three, that's rough. Ours was a supposedly skunked corona. Nobody picked it.
 
Man, the evil you could perpetrate with on of those kits if you were in catering or events. Attend a rivals function and just go round ******* with everyone's beer! Hahaha! Probably get arrested quickly though, running round with an eye dropper ' spiking' everyone's beer.
Breaking news: rival caterer arrested for suspected attempted date rape on numerous blokes at local wedding.
Hahaha

pickaxe
 

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