Is anyone on here a Certified Cicerone? I am considering training my girlfriend for the exam. My guess is with a week of brush up and a refresher sensory kit I could pass the test myself. I know it's not easy, but I am a professional brewer and a giant nerd. I've learned all this material in the past, and even wrote the study guide that Siebel passes out to students for the diploma course (160 pages).
I was hoping someone here with experience could help me out with putting together a training program. I know it's got a high failure rate, only 1 in 3 pass, but I suspect that the main cause is insufficient preparation, not that the test is unreasonable. Living with a professional craft brewer should certainly put my gf in an advantageous position when it comes to prep work. And helping her pass this exam will definitely firm up my knowledge and skills, being a TA in college was perhaps my most valuable experience.
I have been doing some research and put together a training program that looks something like the following.
Essential texts: Tasting Beer, How to Brew, Draft Beer Quality Manual, Brewmaster's Table, BJCP Style Guidelines
Supplemental texts: I'm going to highlight relevant questions in the MBAA Practical Handbooks. That's mostly for brewing, but the answers are so approachable that it makes it so valuable where the subject matter overlaps. Oxford Companion for digging a little deeper in topics that are glossed over in the other texts. Then a few of the style books that are out there for fun, Wild Brews, etc.
Practical Training will be broken up into 3 parts:
1. Brewing - She's hungout while I brewed on the Orpheus pilot system, but I'll have her come hang with me a few times while brewing on the big system. Talk over the process and what flavors are coming from where.
2. Draft Systems - I gotta rebuild the kegerator after this move, new beer lines and I want to put flow controls faucets on it. So I'll have her help me rebuild and maintain it. I think they may have you actually breakdown a faucet for cleaning during the test.
3. Sensory - we're going to get flavor kits and do a proper sensory training. I eventually want to do some threshold testing on myself anyways. Probably need go through each flavor at least twice with her.
I am allotting about 6 months to get through all this with her. She started getting into craft beer when we started dating 10 months ago. She's become an IPA and sour beer head, and honestly her palate is probably better than mine. She picks up on slightly old IPA wicked easy and can pick apart foods when we're out at dinner. She may end up being a better sensory analyst than me.
So... advice? Suggestions, other things we should be doing? I kind of look at the online test as a filter for the real test. It weeds out people who haven't done anywhere near enough preparation. And I think the Certified Cicerone opens up far more job opportunities than the first level.