"To-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another."

I held out on becoming a BJCP judge for a surprisingly long time for someone who is obsessed with getting points and advancing ranks. There are plenty of times, even for me, when I want to just. drink. a. beer. Not evaluate it.

As I predicted, I did not pass. I missed it by a total of 9 points.

I've had a week now to digest my Advanced Cicerone exam experience. It's been weird not having to stress out about when I'm going to squeeze in studying, and I feel a little bad for my box of now-neglected study materials. They were getting so much attention for so long, and now they've been discarded like so many old toys.

If you’re curious about pairing beer with food, I think it’s helpful to start on a smaller scale with something like a beer and cheese pairing because the legwork of figuring out what pairs well with what is already done for you.

Being a craft beer person, it’s not often I drink beers that fall into the American Light Lager, American Lager, and International Pale Lager categories, such as Bud Light, Budweiser, and Heineken.

People have asked why I was taking the Cicerone exam and what I hoped to get out of it. Beer is not just something I drink and rarely has been – it’s living history, a seemingly endless educational opportunity, and a way to bond with people and places, however unlikely.

My road to Cicerone was a long one, full of hard work, failure, and self-discovery. In this series of posts, I'll talk about how I approached the exam, the resources I used, how I conducted tastings, how the day of the exam went for me, and what I learned along the way.