Education & ResearchEst. 1985
Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP)
01
The role
What they make
Non-profit founded in 1985 that certifies beer judges and publishes the style guidelines used by homebrew and commercial competitions worldwide. Judges advance through ranks — Recognized, Certified, National, Master — on a combination of examination scores and points earned judging at sanctioned competitions. Its style guidelines are the framework most modern style classification descends from, including much of the vocabulary used across this archive.
02
Tally's take
Why it matters
A volunteer organisation that quietly ended up defining what a beer style is. Worth remembering that these categories were written down by people, at a particular time, and are revised — a style guideline is a description, not a law of nature.