Cicerone releases study program for its esteemed beer certification

The Cicerone Certification Program launched the first course in their Road to Cicerone series on July 15 — a study program aimed at helping individuals prepare for the Certified Cicerone exam. The first course covers knowledge about German beer styles.

“We worked with an educational consultant and publisher to help create a course that is not just informative but also effective in helping people learn,” said Cicerone program Founder and Director Ray Daniels.

Daniels explained the Road to Cicerone courses include readings, but also emphasize hands-on learning. The active learning comes both through exercises outlined in the course materials and also through interaction with others studying the same materials.

“To facilitate dialogue, we’ve written discussion questions for each chapter and created an online forum,” Daniels said. “Every individual who purchases a Road to Cicerone course gets access to the forums so they can interact with others completing the course as well as the Cicerone content staff and current Certified Cicerones and Master Cicerones.”

Each course concludes with an online exam with a difficulty similar to that of the Certified Cicerone exam. For the German course the exam consists of 75 multiple choice questions. Those who get a score of 80 percent or higher will receive a printable certificate as well as a badge that will be added to their profile on cicerone.org. The course price is $99.

“If you pass that online exam for the German Road to Cicerone course, you should do well on all German style questions in the actual Certified Cicerone exam,” Daniels said.

“We consistently see beer styles as the most challenging section of the exam for most candidates, so we have chosen to focus on styles for the first few courses in Road to Cicerone,” Daniels said. The next course in the series — to be available by September — will focus on British beer styles. Additional courses on Belgian and American styles will also be offered in addition to courses on draft systems, brewing process and ingredients and beer flavor plus food pairing.

“Overall we hope these courses will make it easier for people to set and follow a structured study program that can take them from Certified Beer Server to Certified Cicerone,” Daniels continued. “And it will be particularly useful for companies as the course exams provides clear short-term goals that can help lead to success on the Certified Cicerone exam in one to two years. As with all our educational offerings, no one is required to take any Road to Cicerone course before taking the Certified Cicerone exam. It is just another resource to help people prepare for exams.”