Beer Study Games
Learning about beer styles, especially memorizing stats and commercial examples, for the beer styles tested on the Cicerone and BJCP beer exams, is easily one of the most intimidating parts of preparing for a beer exam, if not THE most intimidating part. While many styles may be familiar to some people, many people are learning about some beer styles for the very first time.
The good news is that if you’re studying for a Cicerone exam, each level builds on the previous level. That means that, for each level you progress within the program, you only have to learn a handful of new styles each time. Here are the number of possible styles you can expect to be tested on for each Cicerone level (excluding the styles found in the Emerging Styles portion of the syllabus):
Certified Beer Server: 40 beer styles
Certified Cicerone: 71 beer styles (+31 new styles)
Advanced Cicerone: 95 beer styles (+24 new styles)
Master Cicerone: 101 beer styles (+6 new styles)
The biggest lifts start with Certified Beer Server, then between Certified Beer Server and Certified Cicerone, and then between Certified Cicerone and Advanced Cicerone. Knowing all of these beer styles in and out is still no easy feat, but imagine how much easier it is when you have a good grasp of all the cumulative styles. Learn them as best as you can for Certified Beer Server and Certified Cicerone, and then you’ve only got 30 more styles to learn for Master. That jump is not as big as it seems right now.
Learning how to shuffle and reshuffle beer styles according to different criteria is the key to success with the Cicerone exam beer styles. Below are two games to help you with that:
Ale or Lager? - Classify each beer style as either an ale or a lager (yes, all the tested beer styles are either ales or lagers). You can select the Cicerone level for which you are studying or go whole hog and use the Master level for all 101 beer styles.
Match the Region - Sort each beer style according to the region where it’s from. You can select the Cicerone level for which you are studying or go whole hog and use the Master level for all 101 beer styles. NOTE: the styles listed in the “Other Regions” subsection of each level’s syllabi are classified as “Other” rather than by their country of origin. For example, International Pale Lager and Australian Sparkling Ale are both correctly categorized under “Other.”