Come judge along with Zymurgy's popular Commercial Calibration tasting panel (Scott Bickham, Dave Houseman, Gordon Strong, and Beth Zangari). Learn how fully evaluate homebrew in a competition setting, including identifying and describing flavors and faults, assigning a score, and interpreting the style guidelines. Match wits and palates with our master judges in this fully interactive session.
The panel members pictured above (left to right):
Scott Bickham lives with his wife and two children in Corning, NY where is is employed as an optical physicist. He has been brewing since 1990, judging since 1992 and held exam director or associate director positions in the BJCP from 1995 through 2006. Bickham enjoys traveling in search of beer or road races and considers an annual real ale pilgrimage to the U.K. an essential part of his judge training.
Beth Zangari became interested in beer in 1984 after reading a book entitled, "The Great Beer Trek" by Stephen Morris. Several years elapsed before a stop at the Sudwerk Brewery on the way to an Amway convention with her husband, Craig, provided exposure to the process of brewing. A sign in a brewing supply shop window a few weeks later gave her the final nudge into homebrewing. Zangari became interested in judging as a means to make better beer and the rest is history. Incidentally, Beth and Craig never made it to the Amway convention. Zangari lives and brews in Placerville, California.
Dave Houseman has been a homebrewer for 15 years and a BJCP judge for 13 years, progressing to Grand Master III Level. He has been on the AHA Governing Committee since 1998 and is a past chairman. Currently he is the BJCP Competition Director and a member of the style guideline committeee, the exam committee and is an Associate Exam Director. He has a wife, two kids, a cat and a dog and when not brewing is often seen on local soccer pitches as a USSF referee. Dave is an occasional author and frequent contributor to popular beer forums.
Gordon Strong is a BJCP Grand Master III judge and was principal author of the 2004 BJCP Style Guidelines. He was technical editor for Wild Brews and Radical Brewing, and a contributor to Brew Like a Monk. He is one of the most experienced judges in the BJCP, judging in more than 140 competitions, and grading more than 400 exams.
Competitions