12/13/2019

Jeff Whelpley and I will present the third of six monthly workshops on beer styles and evaluations on Wednesday January 22nd at 6 pm at Great Central Brewing's Taproom at 221 N. Wood - two blocks from the Green and Pink lines and the Damen and Ashland buses.   RSVPs are required, follow this link to let me know if you'll be joining us.   Our focus this month will be on porters and stouts.  The styles we'll cover include Baltic Porter, English Porter, Irish Stout, Irish Extra Stout, Sweet Stout,

12/09/2019

Yesterday, after about three weeks of focused study, I passed the BJCP Cider Entrance Exam, a prerequisite to take the Cider Judging Exam.  This whole process is to gain an endorsement from the BJCP that I am competent to evaluate ciders.  While there is some similarity between beer and cider evaluation, there is perhaps more commonality with wine evaluation.  Or at least its a melding of the two.   Because the BJCP cider endorsement program is so new, there are less than two dozen judges in

11/21/2019

Last March, the BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program) launched its Cider Judge Program.  The all volunteer organization, which focuses on educating and credentialing both judges and competitions, already had formulated cider style guidelines for competitions and judges to use.  The new Cider Judge Program is a path for BJCP judges to earn an endorsement specific for ciders.  Because the program is  new, very few judges have earned that endorsement - there are only 23 credentialed cider judges