The virtue of whatever dish I'm making is that the individual ingredients taste good when you cook them into one dish - I'm not making toothpaste and orange juice casserole.

As an adult, some nights I spend my time looking over open enrollment paperwork, trying to decide which plan really feels like "me." Other nights, I tell my husband not to fill up on dinner because we have seven different kinds of candy to pair with beer while we watch Stranger Things 2.

Let's get bananimated about esters! Why does some beer taste and smell like banana? That banana flavor and smell are caused by isoamyl acetate, an ester, which is the largest group of flavor compounds in alcoholic beverages. Esters are formed by the reaction of organic acids and alcohols created during fermentation.

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.

One thing I realized very quickly when searching out different types of Belgian wild ales for my studies is that traditional wild Belgian beers, such as gueuze, faro, and fruit lambic, would be extremely hard to find stateside. A lot of what we think of as fruit lambic in the United States has more in common with fruit juice than with traditional fruit lambic. 

How did I find the difference between Belgian Blond Ales, Belgian Golden Strong Ales, and Belgian Tripels?

Pretty much like the difference between Queen's "Under Pressure" and Vanilla Ice's "Ice, Ice, Baby," as described by Vanilla Ice.

Being able to visualize what kinds of ingredients are in my beer adds to my enjoyment of it. It's sort of like when you see the music video for a song you like, in that the next time you hear that song, you'll have an image of the song being performed. 

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.

In a little over six months, I’ll go to the Cicerone Certification Program offices in Chicago, where I’ll sit for the day-long exam. The Advanced Cicerone exam will cover a subset of the information within the Master Cicerone exam and will have the same sections tested on each Cicerone level exam: keeping and serving beer; beer styles; beer flavor and evaluation; beer ingredients and brewing processes; and pairing beer with food.

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.

I’ve heard and read a lot of stuff about what you should and should not do the morning of your Cicerone tasting 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. 

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.

Beyond the expense of the exam itself, the other costs can add up quickly. However, the good news is that if you don’t have a lot of cash to throw around, it’s still completely possible to have all the study materials you need for next to nothing.

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.