New Years Resobrewtions: Halfway There
I *almost* put Brew Beers Resobrewtions as the title, but decided against it. See how much more mature I am 6 months into 2017?
Now that the year if halfway finished (what? how did that happen?), I decided to revisit my seven beer-related goals for 2017 about which I wrote at the beginning of January.
Pass the Advanced Cicerone. Nope, not yet. But hopefully by the end of 2017. I'm retaking the exam in November and I'm feeling confident about it. I have an exam under my belt, which removes a lot of unknowns. I also know where I left easy points on the table and I won't make that mistake again.
Become a Certified BJCP Judge and work towards attaining a National BJCP Judge certification. Done and done. I'm officially a Certified BJCP judge. I retook the BJCP Tasting Exam at the beginning of June and feel fairly confident that I scored at least an 80, which will allow me to sit for the BJCP Written Exam. Ummmm, which I'm currently scheduled to take in November as well. If you subscribe to my newsletter (and if you don't, c'mon, give it a whirl!), this is not news to you.
If you have decent reading comprehension skills, then you'll have noticed that I said I'm taking both the Advanced Cicerone exam and the BJCP Written Exam in November. The BJCP Written Exam is offered four times a year and November 5th is the next exam date. As I've often said here, I highly recommend studying for both the BJCP and Cicerone exams at the same time because they cover such similar material and studying for them concurrently broadens and deepens the amount of knowledge you gain. Beyond needing to know in-depth information about how the BJCP operates, all the information I need to know for the BJCP written exam will be incredibly helpful to me for the Advanced Cicerone. So, you know, I'm doing it because it's there.
Take wine appreciation classes. Honestly, I forgot this was even one of my goals. So...yeah, maybe someday but not anytime in the near future.
Learn more about liquor and craft cocktails. Besides my Fernet Branca obsession, I haven't done a ton with this goal either.
Practice beer and food pairing. Hey! Something I've actually made an effort to start doing. Once a week or so, I'll sit down with a list of ingredients of what I'm planning to cook for dinner and then look up what styles of beers will pair well with the meal. If I have more than one option, I'll serve both beers to see if one pairs better than the other. It has been extremely helpful in thinking through beer and food pairings, which was a specific improvement I needed that was pointed out to me on the Advanced Cicerone.
Enjoy my beer "cellar." I have been doing this with a lot more frequently of late. About once a week, when I get a hankering for a particular beer style, I grab my beer list first to see what I already have before buying something new. It's been really enjoyable and I haven't once wished that I would have saved the beer for a day longer.
Detach from the hype. Yeeeeaaaahhhhhh, this has been another difficult habit to break. However, I have gotten better at letting go and find that I forget about whatever beer I HAD to have pretty quickly. Sometimes, it even pops up in my orbit anyway, which makes it a lot more enjoyable.
So far this year, I am about 50/50 on keeping up my beer resolutions. However, I am making steady progress on two of my biggest goals and I'm pretty happy with that.
How have your beer resolutions been going?