Hi All, New to the forums. Nice to semi-meet you. I'm planning on taking the BJCP online entrance exam in the coming week, and am looking to schedule my BJCP tasting exam ASAP to make sure I get a seat within the one-year allotted timeframe. I was surprised to see how few and far between these exams are...and how far I'm going to have to drive to get to one (I'm in Northern Jersey)! I found one taking place in October in PA. I emailed the organizer a couple days ago but have yet to hear back. My question is, do new dates and locations ever pop up, or are the ones listed on the BJCP website pretty much all there are to choose from? I almost feel like I'm going to have to put off taking the entrance exam until a later date in order to find something that fits my schedule, but as a woman who is planning on having her second child sooner rather than later, that would make things especially frustrating--I'm afraid all my knowledge and planning will dissipate after nine months of sobriety. Don't want this to be all for naught!
Welcome to BA, Bethany. Sorry I can't help with exact details regarding the BJCP tasting exam except to say that it never has been all that easy to get to one in our area, and you might have to travel (the last time i judged was in 1997- so I suppose take that with a grain of salt). The thing seems to me, though, that since you apparently won't be judging throughout the 9 months of pregnancy anyway, you might just be jumping the gun with the test. It might just make sense to wait in any event, and you just may get lucky and hit something closer to home when the time comes. Stick around the forums for a while (especially Beer Talk and Homebrewing) and we'll be sure to keep you sharp on the material . Hopefully somebody with more recent experience chimes in, though, and has a better handle on the schedules. Good luck with the exams, whatever you decide.
Regarding the exam in PA in October: In the past due to overwhelming popularity, preference was given to the top performers in the BJCP class that was offered at Keystone Homebrew prior to the exam. For instance, when I took it there were 24 spots for the class, and the top 12 were able to sit for the exam. I know the exam organizer personally. I'd hope he'd get back to you, but I know he's insanely busy right now serving as the organizer for the second round of the National Homebrew Competition. To sum up, you can probably get into the exam in PA if you're willing to drive there once a week for the class.
I can't offer much advice, except to say that if you posted this question in the Homebrew forum, you might get more bites.
Thanks, all! This is very helpful. I really appreciate it. I had no idea it would be so difficult to get an exam seat. I obviously need to practice some patience with this one.
