Article by Kathy Yan Li, Certified Judge
Photos courtesy of Jeff Sanders, Certified Judge
Homebrew Con. Possibly the best conference to be at. Great people. Better beer. And all the exams you can take. Yup, I made my eight hour drive to Baltimore, MD from London, ON worthwhile by taking all the exams that I could, which were the beer, mead, and cider tasting exams.
I’ve taken my beer tasting exam before and received a respectable 70 on my first try, but man is it hard to get into a beer tasting exam nowadays. Exams are often scheduled a year and a half in advance, and it’s full by the time you eyeball the listing on the website.
I’ve had a few years of beer judging under my belt before this, so I was pretty confident about the beer exam, but mead and cider? The tasting skills are the same, for sure, but my vocabulary for either mead or cider were pretty non-existent. Why did we have to change the word “Aroma” to “Bouquet” in mead? Did you know that still doesn’t mean completely flat? It can still have the tiniest bit of bubbles. Or that sack doesn’t just hold your apples, but could get you super krunked? And don’t get me started on the numerous varieties of honey or apples.
Cider tasting on the the Tuesday was exciting, since it was only the second time it was run. Did you know that ciders are supposed to balance the sweetness and tanginess of apples? I don’t think I had ever had a cider that wasn’t just super sweet, until I got to the cider tasting exam. The cider judge section of BJCP is still having its kinks worked out, with the hopes that it will go live at the end of the year, which will be amazing because the cider sector is only ever growing.
The beer tasting exam on Wednesday was pretty standard, while I ran out of words to describe “sweetness” in the mead tasting exam. Overall, the tasting exams were really fun and I got to meet some awesome people, whom I got to reconnect later in the conference. And for those who are studying for various tasting exams, trust your gut and be as descriptive as you can. Top tip from Homebrew Con: You should be able taste and experience the beer/mead/cider if someone reads your tasting notes back to you.