Pencils down at 4 p.m. on the dot… and my hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder were in agony by that time. It sounds silly, but the worst part of the BJCP exam was writing with a pencil for three hours. We started at 1 p.m. with the expected purpose of the BJCP question and the expected judging level hierarchy question. Then 15 true/false questions about the judging rules and process, followed by 9 essay questions, and four tasters.
I got lucky in some respects. The style questions were all relatively prominent styles except for the sour ale question, and I knew enough about those beers to make what I think was good commentary, save for the fact that I couldn’t remember a commercial example for the Flanders Red style, or the Berliner Weisse style.
The recipe formulation question went well because they chose Oktoberfest/Marzen as the required style. I studied specifically for this style and I feel like I did a fairly good job at it.
The brewing question — mashing — went pretty well also.
The tasters on the other hand are what have me concerned. I feel like I did pretty well, I toughened up my scores from my previous, more generous totals. But the examiners definitely try to trick the examinees. We found out after the exam that some of the beers were blended, including the Bohemian Pilsener. It was drier than I expected a Czech Pilsener to be, so I marked it down heavily and said that it might be better judged as a German Pils. I heard a couple of the guys who provided baseline scores agreeing with me, but we’ll see how that shakes out. The schwarzbier example was great, but also blended. The Scottish 80/- was overattenuated and too dry. The ESB we were given was purposely doctored to be sour and was full of buttery diacetyl.
When the test was over, I had the privilege of trying out Clipper City’s Imperial Oktoberfest. Pretty crazy; the alcohol seems to overwhelm the malt a bit, but it’s still within the color parameters of a Märzen instead of being more bock-like. I tried it backed up by some März-hon — which is a little light in color for the style. I’d like to try it out against a Hacker-Pschorr or a Späten.
I’ll let you know how it actually went in the two to three months it takes the BJCP to grade ‘em!
Looking forward to the results. Hope they turn out well.
P.S: I too, had a fresh batch of CC’s Imperial Series at the brewery (the Big DIPA in my case) and the alcohol was so overwhelming, it was almost medicinal. Then a couple of months later, they released the 22oz bottled versions… night and day man. Much, MUCH better (and more malt taste) than the fresh batch from the brewery. So I’d love to hear your thoughts on the bottled Imperial Oktoberfest (which I think just recently shipped)
I know they do great work, and I like their Marz-Hon quite a bit. The Big DIPA I tasted was pretty damn good in the bottle as well. Hopefully the same holds true for the Oktoberfest.