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.

I wish I could tell you what I thought about all the beers, but another danger of drinking eight different samples is that by the end, you don't pay attention to where you put your scoresheets and now fear they may be lost forever.

I’ve heard and read a lot of stuff about what you should do and should not do the morning of the exam: don’t eat, don’t drink coffee, don’t smoke, don’t wear perfume. I’m a brat when it comes to being hungry. My day is 15% eating snacks and 85% worrying I may be too far away from snacks at any given time, so not eating the morning of the exam was not an option for me.

A word of warning: as great as American craft beer is, I would buy the commercial examples listed in the BJCP Guidelines rather than buying an American craft version of a style because there is a high likelihood that an American craft beer that purports to be a style like an ESB is probably not going to be the best way to train your palate and brain to recognize the classic beer style.