The Unofficial BJCP Study Guide
By Thomas Barnes
c. 2011
Some rights reserved. Permission is granted to copy this work for personal and non-profit use.
Introduction
This is my third attempt to create an organized study guide for the BJCP exam. It is largely derived from Al Boyce’s BJCP Exam for Dummies 2008 edition (which, in turn, was derived from materials prepared by Kristen England among others), but also incorporates training materials developed by Gordon Strong, Kevin Pratt and other BJCP Grand Master judges, discussions on the BJCP member forums, and my own experience and biases from past attempts at the exam.
While I am not a grand master judge, I’m shamelessly working to get there and getting that magic 90+% score is the first and critical step. Unlike most grand masters, I’ve taken the exam in the past few years, so I know what it’s like to study for the exam in its current form. I’ve filled in gaps in my personal knowledge by haunting the BJCP forums and nagging more experienced judges for information.
Using the first, primitive version of this guide, with very little actual brewing or judging experience, I got a 73% on the written portion of my test the first time I took the exam. Using the second version of this guide, I got an 81% on the written portion of the exam on my second try at the exam, while my wife used it to get a score of 73% on her first try. For some questions, we got master level scores. I take that as a good sign.
If you are an intermediate (partial grain extract or beginning all-grain) brewer with a decent knowledge of styles and a bit of judging experience, my guess is that you can use this guide as a “cram sheet” and perhaps get a 60% or better if you also have time to study the BJCP Style Guidelines. If you spend 8-10 weeks studying the material in this guide, as well as the recommended study materials, there is no reason why you cannot score at least at 70% the first time you take the exam.
Recommended Study Materials
Official BJCP Materials
BJCP Style Guidelines
http://www.bjcp.org/2008_BJCP_Guidelines.pdf
BJCP Study Guide
http://www.bjcp.org/Interim_Study_Guide.doc
BJCP Judge Procedures Manual
http://www.bjcp.org/Judge_Procedures_Manual.pdf
BJCP Judge Instructions
http://www.bjcp.org/SCP_JudgeInstructions.pdf
BJCP Beer Score Sheet
http://www.bjcp.org/SCP_BeerScoreSheet.pdf
Competition Cover Sheet
http://www.bjcp.org/SCP_CoverSheet.pdf
BJCP Beer Faults Trouble-shooter
http://www.bjcp.org/Beer_faults.pdf
BJCP Exam Preamble
http://www.bjcp.org/forms/exam_instructions_cover.pdf
BJCP Exam Score Sheet
http://www.bjcp.org/forms/exam_scoresheets.pdf
BJCP FAQ
http://www.bjcp.org/bjcpfaq.html
BJCP Members Guide
http://www.bjcp.org/membergd.html
Exemplary BJCP Score Sheets
http://www.bjcp.org/examscore1.pdf
http://www.bjcp.org/examscore2.pdf
http://www.bjcp.org/examscore3.pdf
http://www.bjcp.org/examscore4.pdf
http://www.bjcp.org/examscore5.pdf
http://www.bjcp.org/examscore6.pdf
Creating and Recognizing Great Scoresheets
http://www.bjcp.org/docs/Grading_Scoresheets.doc
Supplemental Materials
The web is chock-full of study aids and other resources which will help you prepare for the exam. There are podcasts, flash cards (online and printable versions), spreadsheets, forums and mailing lists all dedicated to BJCP exam prep, as well as detailed websites and Wikipedia devoted to all aspects of beer tasting, judging and brewing. A web search using the terms “BJCP study materials,” or the like, will turn up a host of goodies. As usual, Caveat Surfor.
Basic Texts
These books are all good, but each has its strong and weak points. Choose one or two as your basic guide for recipe formulation, troubleshooting and process.
* The Complete Handbook of Home Brewing, Dave Miller. A solid, accessible book, but dated. Probably the least technical of the four recommended basic texts, so good for beginners.
* Dave Miller’s Homebrewing Guide, Dave Miller. Covers slightly different material than his Complete Handbook and in more depth. Somewhat dated.
* Homebrewing Vol. 1, Al Korzonas. Detailed, extensive coverage of ingredients and equipment, massive amounts of information on beer faults. While it is thicker than any other the other books, and perhaps a bit intimidating to the beginner, it’s the best of the four for troubleshooting.
* How to Brew, John Palmer. Excellent for brewing process and recipe formulation, but probably the most technical of the basic texts. Nice description of how mash enzymes work. If you want to build the perfect chest cooler mash tun, the appendix in this book is not to be missed!
Useful Supplemental Reading
These books are recommended for students who have more time to study and/or want a higher score on the exam. They all presuppose a certain amount of brewing knowledge on the part of the reader, so they can be a bit much for the beginner!
Ingredients/Process/Troubleshooting
These books are recommended if you want to get a higher score on the technical portion of the written exam.
* Beer: Tap into the Art and Science of Brewing. Charles Bamforth. Gives a good overview of the malting and brewing process, but doesn’t get into details of troubleshooting, mashing or hops. Bamforth is an excellent writer and one of the foremost fermentation scientists out there; his more technical materials go into far more detail, but they’re harder to find and are much more expensive.
* Brewing Better Beer. Gordon Strong. Strong is the highest ranked BJCP judge (Grand Master V) and 3-time winner of the National Homebrewing Competition’s Ninkasi award (given for most ribbons won in the first and second rounds of the competition). His book is cornucopia of brewing tips, beer judging and troubleshooting advice for would-be judges as well as experienced homebrewers.
* Home Brewing Wiki (http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page). A very good source for obscure brewing and troubleshooting tips. But, since it isn’t always good about listing its sources, use with caution.
* New Brewing Lager Beer, Greg Noonan. Recommended for process and recipe formulation, especially German lagers. Excellent section on the malting and mashing process. Good overview of various forms of decoction mashing.
* Principles of Brewing Science, 2nd Edition, George Fix. Good for understanding brewing chemistry, especially mash and hop chemistry. Also good for troubleshooting. Avoid the first edition, its shot through with errors.
* Radical Brewing, Randy Mosher. This is an eclectic book which delves into historical beer recipes, brewing with unusual ingredients and odd brewing techniques, among other topics. It has recipes for less common beer styles, such as Berlinerweisse, Classic American Pilsner and Belgian Wit, as well as good discussions of brewing with adjuncts such as fruit, unmalted grains, sugar, spices and smoked malt. It also has useful information on off-flavors as well as instructions for making your own beer-doctoring kit.
* Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation, Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff. An excellent primer on all aspects of beer fermentation, including basic yeast biology and brewing with Brettanomyces. It also has very good chapters on how to identify and avoid various fermentation problems. Extremely useful for answering the off-flavor and yeast questions on the technical portion of the exam.
Styles/Recipe Formulation
These books are recommended if you want to get a higher score on the style portion of the exam, or the “all grain recipe” question.
* Brewing Classic Styles, Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer. The best book for available for recipe formulation. Based on the current version of the BJCP Guidelines, so recipe information is directly applicable to the BJCP exam.
* Designing Great Beers, Ray Daniels. An excellent book, for recipe formulation, beer styles and understanding ingredients. Just be aware that the style descriptions and recipes are based on an outdated version of the BJCP Guidelines. To some extent it has been superseded by Brewing Classic Styles, but it’s still good.
* Radical Brewing, Randy Mosher. Surveys a number of topics, including troubleshooting and brewing process. Excellent for information about obscure styles, odd brewing techniques, unusual brewing ingredients, and so forth. Required reading for anyone who intends to brew or judge Belgian specialty, fruit, spice/herb/vegetable, smoked or wood-aged, and/or specialty beers.
Nice, But Not Essential
These sources of information are good if you have lots of time to prepare for the exam.
* Amber, Gold and Black: The history of Britain’s Great Beers. Martyn Cornell. A rarity among beer history books, this is a well-researched, readable and accurate account of the history of most of Britain’s major beer styles. The only reason it isn’t on my supplemental reading list is because it conflicts so badly with the “legendary history” given in the BJCP style guidelines.
* Michael Jackson, The Beer Hunter (http://www.beerhunter.com/index-new.html). Michael Jackson. The web page of the late, great Michael Jackson. It has dozens of articles on beers styles, as well as reviews of specific beers, breweries and beer festivals. For the exam, focus on beer styles and reviews of beers listed as classic commercial examples in the BJCP Guidelines.
* Brew Your Own. The quality of articles printed in BYO magazine over the last 5 years ago has been pretty good. In particular, Chris Colby and Ashton Lewis give excellent technical and troubleshooting advice. It is also a good source for articles on emerging and obscure beer styles. Some articles are available online and back issues are readily available.
* CAMRA Good Beer Guides, various authors. This is a series of guides published on a regular basis by the Campaign for Real Ale, the foremost beer advocacy organization in the U.K. They are generally decent for understanding the current beer scene in the U.K. and continental Europe. Just be aware that there are slight differences in British brewing and beer tasting terms compared to U.S. terminology and that CAMRA’s style definitions are very different than the BJCP’s!
* The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, 3rd Edition, The Homebrewers Companion, etc., Charlie Papazian. Cheerful, encouraging, readily accessible guides for beginning to advanced intermediate homebrewers. Discussion of technical topics and brewing process is basic, but generally sound, although there are some mistakes. Recipes and style discussions are very simple and contain errors. These are good books for a novice homebrewer, but there are better sources of test prep material.
* Tasting Beer. Randy Mosher. An introductory book on beer styles, beer tasting, off-flavors and food and beer pairings. It has a good section on making your own beer doctoring kit. The only reason it’s not on my Useful Supplemental Reading list is because it spends a lot of time on material which anyone taking the BJCP exam should know already or which is extraneous to the test.
* Zymurgy. The quality of articles printed in Zymurgy over the last 5 or so years has been pretty good. The Commercial Calibration column is of particular value when preparing for the tasting portion of the exam. It’s also a good source for articles on emerging and obscure beer styles. Some articles are available online and back issues are readily available.
Problematic Sources
While these books are recommended as primary or supplemental reading on the BJCP Interim Study Guide, or are otherwise common study sources, I cannot recommend them wholeheartedly.
* Beer Companion, Great Beers of Belgium, Great Beer Guide, New World Guide to Beer, Ultimate Beer, etc. Michael Jackson. When he was alive, Jackson was hailed as the world’s foremost beer writer. He was one of the first writers to categorize beer into styles, so he indirectly exerted a huge influence on the BJCP Style Guidelines. For this reason, anyone taking the exam should have a passing familiarity with his writings.
Sadly though, his books are becoming ever more dated. Jackson died in 2007; his most influential works (World Guide to Beer, Beer Companion) were written in the 1980s and were generally last updated in the late 1990s. Meanwhile, the beer world goes on. While they are still fun reading and offer a wealth of information about the beer scene in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, none of his books give the sort of concise style information you need for the exam.
Recommended only if you have a lot of time and money to spend. Skip early editions unless you’re specifically interested in late 20th century brewing history; they are badly dated and have some errors. Look for books published or revised after 2001 - the later the better. Of the books listed in the Interim Study Guide, the 2005 edition of Great Beers of Belgium is probably the most useful.
* Brew Chem 101, Lee W. Janson. The title of this book says it all; it’s an introduction to brewing chemistry for the complete beginner. It’s a bit more detailed than general homebrewing texts, but not as detailed as more technical books. In some ways it is better organized and easier to understand than Principles of Brewing Science, but it is also shot through errors, so use it with caution. In particular, Janson confuses diacetyl and DMS, and doesn’t fully understand the processes involved in all-grain brewing. If you use it as your sole source of data for the technical portion of the exam, don’t expect a score above 60-70%!
If you’re a scientist or an experienced brewer, this book will make your teeth ache; skip it and go directly to Principles of Brewing Science. Likewise, if you have taken college level biology or chemistry, skip this book. But, if you’re a novice brewer, the last science course you took was high school chemistry too many years ago, and you’re just looking to get a Recognized or Certified score on the exam, Brew Chem 101 will be “good enough.”
* Brewing Techniques, New Wine Press. Out of print and increasingly dated. Some articles are available online, but it’s often difficult to get the information you need. Some back issues are still available, but most of the better issues are long gone. Still, BT is the only source for some obscure beer styles and technical topics.
* Prost: The Story of German Beer, Horst Dornbusch. Out of print, laden with errors and not particularly germane to the BJCP exam. With few exceptions, Dornbusch is a terrible source for beer history and brewing techniques. Not recommended.
* Zymurgy, Special Issues (Troubleshoot, Hops, Grains, Traditional Beer Styles, etc.). Hard to find and increasingly dated. There are much better, more accessible, materials available in print and on the web. Not recommended.
The Classic Beer Style Series
This is an ongoing series of books published by Brewers Publications. I’ve put them in their own section because they’re of extremely uneven quality.