Become A BJCP Beer Judge: Quick Guide
I’m not gonna lie: you’ve got your work cut out for you. But don’t run away yet! I just wanted to acknowledge that while it IS challenging to become a BJCP judge for a lot of people, there are many, many rewards and reasons for doing so:
You’ll learn more about beer
You’ll brew better beer, (if that’s your jam)
You’ll meet awesome people who have similar passions
You’ll be contributing to the greater beer community
You’ll get cool bragging rights
You’ll feel a great sense of accomplishment, (probably)
It’s not an exhaustive list, just enough to whet your whistle for now. Moving on!
About This Guide
Why I Wrote It
I’ve already said that becoming a BJCP judge is challenging, and it is for a couple of reasons. The one way it SHOULDN’T be challenging is figuring out how to do the damn thing, and, bless their pointy little heads, the BJCP website is rife with information but it’s difficult to find a straight answer from it on anything. This guide aims to provide you with step-by-step instructions, linked resources at the points when you need them, and an expected timeline of events. If you’re gonna do it, it should be easy to figure out how.
What This Guide Covers
If you follow the steps in this guide and are successful at passing the exams, you’ll gain your first ranking as a BJCP judge. There are a total of three exams. This guide only covers the first two, (the BJCP Beer Judge Entrance Examination and the BJCP Beer Judging Examination) because you need to pass them both in order to avoid the potential of having to take the entrance exam over again. If you want to gain more ranks, you’ll need to take the third, and do some other stuff, but my goal here is to make sure you know what to do so you don’t have to redo the entrance exam again. Trust me, you DO NOT want to do that if you don’t have to.
So, to recap:
Your first ranking as a BJCP judge requires you pass these two tests in this order:
The BJCP Beer Judge Entrance Examination, (also referred to as the “online exam”) AND
the BJCP Beer Judging Examination
The BJCP Beer Judge Entrance Examination and the BJCP Beer Judging Examination
Yes, they’re two different tests. If you’re rolling your eyes at how similarly they’re named, we’re gonna be friends. It’s totally confusing at first glance. Anywho, let’s talk about what they are and how they’re different.
The BJCP Beer Judge Entrance Examination
For our purposes here, I will refer to this exam from now on as the “Entrance Exam”.
Summary
Format: Online, open book
Number of questions: 180
Time limit: 60 minutes
Question types: Multiple-choice, multiple answer, true-false
Recommended resources
The most current version of the BJCP Style Guidelines (found online, or you can download an app version.)
Price: $10 - $20
Results received: Immediately
Status gained if passed: Provisional
This is your first step, and it’s a doozy. There are a lot of very technical questions, and they give you less than half a minute to answer them all. But fear not, it’s OPEN BOOK. And while you won’t have time to look up every answer, it’s helpful to know that you may have time to look up some of them.
Tips
Pay for the “3 for 2” option that allows you to attempt the Entrance Exam three times for the price of two, ($20). Unless you know you can pass it on the first try, this just makes sense.
Read the recommended resources thoroughly, (duh)
It’s helpful to have homebrewing experience and knowledge, though not strictly necessary
The exam allows you to mark questions and go back to them later. So, try to answer all of the questions as quickly as you can on your first pass, and then go back to the ones you’re unsure of when you’re done. A wrong answer is better than no answer in this case, because there’s a chance you might have gotten it right instead.
If you have multiple monitors, you can have the exam up on one screen and some of the recommended resources on the other. Using the “find” shortcut may help you find the answers you’re looking for. But be careful with this; only use this strategy after you’re done with your first pass and/or you know you can find the info quickly. You want to answer every question if you can, not get bogged down looking for the answer to one question in the beginning, potentially leaving unanswered questions at the end.
What’s Provisional Status?
Provisional rank is what you’re assigned when you pass the Entrance Exam. It’s a temporary rank, and is only good for one year. You must take and pass the second exam, the BJCP Beer Judging Examination, within one year of passing the Entrance Exam. If you don’t, your Provisional rank is revoked and you’ll have to pass the Entrance Exam all over again.
The BJCP Beer Judging Examination
For our purposes here, I will refer to this exam from now on as the “Judging Exam”.
Summary
Format: In person, closed book
You will judge six beers in 90 minutes by filling out a score sheet for each beer
Recommended resources
The most current version of the BJCP Style Guidelines (found online, or you can download an app version.)
Price: $40 for the first time, $15 for retakes
Results received: 3 to 6 months, (it’s hand-graded by volunteers so patience is definitely a virtue, here)
Possible statuses gained if passed: Recognized or Certified, depending on points earned, (points are explained below).
Tips
Start judging competitions as soon as you can. We’ll talk about how to do that later on.
Get very familiar with the official BJCP scoresheet
Look at examples of excellent scoresheets, linked here and above
Fill out scoresheets for beers you drink at home as practice
Do a sensory training. Homebrew clubs, pro breweries, and cicerone.org will host sensory trainings from time to time.
What Are Points?
Points are what you gain when you judge an actual BJCP-sanctioned competition. It’s a way to gauge experience, and can be earned by judging, stewarding, or organizing a competition. Basically, they help you “level up” and are the difference between starting out as a Recognized judge, (with a passing score of 60+ and 0 points) or jumping to the next level of Certified, (with a passing score of 70+ and 5 points). Don’t worry about this part too much right now, we’ll get into it in the next section.
What if I Don’t Get My Results Back Until After My Year Is Up?
Good news! As long as you took the Judging Exam within a year of passing the Entrance Exam, and you pass it, your bright and shiny new rank is good for as long as you maintain it, even if you receive your results after the year's deadline has gone by.
And you were worried.
Becoming A Beer Judge
Let’s get on with it, shall we? If you jumped ahead to this section, I get it. I’m a fan of the #TL;DR movement, too. Here are my recommendations for the steps you should take, in what order, with linked resources and tips along the way.
Start judging official competitions, (optional, but highly recommended). That’s right, you don’t have to take/pass the Entrance Exam to judge a competition, and if you’re serious about this process, this is the #1 piece of advice I can give you. It’s key for getting a good score on the Judging Exam later on. How do you get into a competition with no experience? I’m glad you asked because there are a couple of ways to do this. IMPORTANT: If you do get into a competition at this stage, start filling out sample scoresheets right away and read that Judge Procedures Manual I told you about earlier.
Find an upcoming competition and contact the organizer with your credentials, (whatever homebrewing/beer experience and/or certifications/etc. you may have). Organizers are often looking for judges up to the last minute.
Find a BJCP judge who will vouch for you and see if you can get paired up with them at a competition
If you belong to a homebrew club and that club organizes competitions, ask them if they’ll let you judge
Pass the Certified Beer Server exam at cicerone.org if you don’t have any other qualifications and don’t already know any BJCP judges. This will at least show that you have some motivation and know a little bit about beer. It’s $80 for an online exam that consists of 60 multiple-choice questions that you need to answer in 30 minutes. Then contact a competition’s organizer with that info and that you’d like to judge. This is how I got into my first competition.
Look at the BJCP Exam calendar for upcoming judging exams. It’s important to do this now because you want to make sure you can get into a judging exam before your year is up, and they can be few and far between. Don’t worry if you don’t see one close to you yet, there’s a good chance one will pop up within your timeframe. Just get used to checking this page often so you can jump on the chance when you see it.
Study for, and take, the Entrance Exam. See my advice and tips for this at the beginning of this guide.
If you didn’t start judging competitions before passing the Entrance Exam, do it now before you take your first Judging Exam.
Schedule a judging exam within one year of passing the Entrance Exam. Tip: Do this as soon as you can, but keep in mind that you’ll need lots of practice by judging competitions beforehand.
What’s Next?
Judging competitions! Meeting fellow beer judges! Increasing your beer knowledge! Ruling the world!
Well, maybe not that last bit exactly.
You’ll be ruling your own beer world, and that’s pretty cool, isn’t it?
If you pass the Judging Exam, you’ll receive an email with your judge ID number that will allow you to create a username and password to log into their site. The site is updated manually, so you may not be able to log in right away. Just be patient; BJCP is all volunteer and they work really hard!
I hope this guide has been helpful to you. If you have recommendations for how to make it better, or find the steps/links/tips confusing, incomplete, or wrong, please send me an email at lyra@lyrateachesbeer.com. I want to make sure this is as clear, concise, and as useful as possible to all the potential beer judges out there.
Cheers!
P.S. Like what I’ve said here? Want to hear from me again? Sign up below for updates. :)