Like most people, I rarely rely on my own knowledge to recall anything, and I almost exclusively rely on various software, apps, and algorithms to determine how I move through my daily life. This reliance naturally extends to my homebrewing.

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.

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.

It's been 77 days since I brewed my 100% Brett-fermented beer, and I'm happy to report three things.

The very best way to think of the difference between extract brewing and all-grain brewing is to think of the difference between using a cake mix and baking a cake from scratch.

I imagine that the trajectory homebrew has taken in my household is akin to parents with babies - at first, everything has to be clean and sanitized nearly to the point of being sterile to protect your offspring/homebrew; after awhile, though, you realize that your baby will live even if it eats Cheerios off the couch cushions and that your beer will still be drinkable even if you forgot to sanitize the scissors you used to cut open your yeast packet.

"Meh" is not acceptable feedback for competitions. Or anywhere, really - stop leaving "Meh" as beer feedback, everyone

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

My favorite term for a hangover is the jim-jams. So let’s say you find yourself with the jim-jams. What do you do? Like hiccups, most people have their own “cure” for a hangover. Here’s the deal: there is no cure or remedy for a hangover. The only remedy is time, i.e., your hangover is probably going to be your whole day. However, there are several things you can do to lessen the effects of your hangover.

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.