How Do You Prep For The Hardest Beer Test In The World?

Mandy Naglich is an award-winning home brewer who also writes and teaches about beer. Now she wants to become a Master Cicerone — basically the beer equivalent of a master sommelier.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

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• 0:44Dan Pashman?

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• 1:13Dan Pashman?

  All right, I'm gonna say a food, you tell me a beer to go with it. Ready?

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:16Dan Pashman?

  Pop quiz.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:18Dan Pashman?

  Grilled scallops.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Grilled scallops. Oh, I think a really nice, like, light Heffeywaisen would be very nice with that, because scallops are so sweet, so you get that little orange kind of playing off it, that little sweetness, but not too overwhelming. You don't want anything too intense with something as delicate as a scallop.

• 1:32Dan Pashman?

  Caesar salad.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Caesar salad. Okay, so that's gonna be like a lot of salt and cheese going on. I think like a Czech amber lager would be really nice with that. That has a little bit of that like tostiness of dark malt, so kind of playing off your crouton. It also has a little butteriness that's really signature to Czech beers, so that could go really nicely together and also add kind of a new element, right? You're getting that like toasty liquid bread kind of going on.

• 1:57Dan Pashman?

  Kimchi.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Kimchi, that's a good one. So kimchi's gonna be really refreshing, spicy. I could see that going well with a Schwartz beer, kind of to balance it out. Schwartz beer's gonna be bitter, but not too bitter. It's a dark beer, so it kind of will bring like an element of a little bit of like bitterness and roast to kind of cut through some of that like really sharp acid, hopefully not clashing too much. I'd kind of have to try that together. I don't know if I've done a lot of kimchi pairing. Maybe saison, too. Saisons are kind of funky, so like, bring the funk to the funk.

• 2:29Dan Pashman?

  This is the Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. And first up, in case you didn't hear last week, big news. I had told you recently that one spot opened up in my pasta tour of Italy this fall. Well, I talked to my friends at Culinary Backstreets, they run the tour, and they were able to open up an additional spot, so now we have room for one or two solo travelers or a pair of people. You'll eat your way across Rome with Katie Parla, we'll travel to an olive oil manufacturer right in the heart of olive oil pressing season. We'll cook together, we'll eat together, we'll even go on a Spaghetti alla assassina crawl in Bari. It's a really special trip, you should probably come. Jump on those last couple spots for this fall while you can. Get details and register now

• 3:13Dan Pashman?

  at culinarybackstreets.com/sporkful. All right, let's get into it. Today, we're sharing the story of beer writer and educator Mandy Neglich and her attempt to become a Master Cicerone. That's the highest certification a beer expert can get. It's like a Master Sommelier, but for beer. There are only 19 Master Cicerones in the world. When I first met Mandy, we were both working at WNYC, the New York Public Radio Station. She was in marketing and I was hosting this podcast there. I did an episode with her back in 2016 because by night, she had this whole other life as a home brewer, making beer in her small New York City apartment.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  This is an old ice cream fridge that we hacked, and it's now a four-tap keg rater.

• 3:53Dan Pashman?

  For Mandy, this was more than a hobby. She had just won a gold medal at the National Homebrewing Competition. She had entered alongside 3,000 other home brewers, including her boyfriend at the time, Wes, who's now her husband. Mandy won. She was a rising star in the homebrewing world, but the beer world is very male. As she told me in that previous episode, even with her big award, guys still loved to question her credentials.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  I mean, I definitely got comments, like, someone made a joke, and they're like, "Oh, it must have been your boyfriend that wrote the recipe," which is like, okay, you know, just one, let me bask in this for a minute. But there was comments like that. I mean, there's also just jokes like, "Oh, you're the hottest person to win this year." I was also the only female who won gold. And I mean, we'd all been drinking the whole night of the award ceremony, right? They give you free beer at the awards ceremony.

• 4:41Dan Pashman?

  You're saying there's a lot of drinking at the Homebrewing Championships?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  There's a lot of drinking.

• 4:44Dan Pashman?

  Okay. Did you feel like some of them resented you?

• 4:48Speaker 01

  I did have one weird woman after the award ceremony, after the after-party, like, when we're all just hanging out and talking at our awards, where they were asking me about my recipe, and it wasn't like, "Oh, you know, why did you do this?" It was, "Tell me what temperature you did this. Tell me what ingredient, why did you do that? Oh, you did this?" It felt like a little, like they were trying to catch me off guard, like...

• 5:07Dan Pashman?

  An interrogation.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little bit.

• 5:09Dan Pashman?

  They wanted to see if you really knew your stuff.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  And that was after my boyfriend had gone home to the hotel, too. You know, it went from kind of being like, we're all hanging out and doing our thing, to like a little bit of an intense moment that I definitely didn't appreciate.

• 5:22Dan Pashman?

  Since that conversation in 2016, I've been keeping close tabs on Mandy's beer career, and she has been busy. I met up with her at Carmine Street Beers. It's a bar and bottle shop in New York City that sells more than 500 different beers. So, Mandy, I want to hang out, I want to talk, I want to catch up.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:38Dan Pashman?

  But while we're catching up, should we just start drinking now, or should we wait to start drinking?

• 5:42Speaker 01

  I'm always ready to start drinking, especially, like you said, I purposely, you know, I got up early, got everything done, because I was like, at 2 o'clock, who knows how much I'll be drinking after. So...

• 5:53Dan Pashman?

  Why don't you order us some beers, whatever you're in the mood for?

• 5:55Speaker 01

  What do you, what do you guys have on that's like refreshing, light? Oh, that's a great one. Yeah, let's definitely do that.

• 6:02Dan Pashman?

  What is it? Mandy orders us a Pilsner called Mary from Hill Farmstead in Vermont. All right, cheers.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  First taste. It's nice and cold.

• 6:09Dan Pashman?

  Oh, yeah. Am I supposed to smell it first?

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. I mean, that's like a natural, I can't even...

• 6:15Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 6:18Dan Pashman?

  The big development in Mandy's career since we last met up is that, as I said, she's trying to become the 20th Master Cicerone in the world. To pass, Mandy has to not only know a ton about beer tasting and pairing, she also has to know about the science and mechanics of beer brewing and serving, running tap lines, all that machinery involved. The Cicerone program was started in 2007 by a craft brewer named Ray Daniels, and it has four levels. The first is Certified Beer Server. Mandy got that one years ago.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  That's just an online test, and I actually did it as a vet with a couple guys who were like, "I think I know more about beer than you." And I was like, "I have an easy way to test this. Let's take this online test." It was like, I think it's like 50 bucks or something. You take it right then, and like, who got the best score? And of course, it was me who came out on top, so...

• 7:02Dan Pashman?

  As Mandy became better known in homebrewing circles, folks from the Cicerones encouraged her to go for the next level, Certified Cicerone.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  And I went ahead and took that in 2016 and passed it on my first try, which was...

• 7:12Dan Pashman?

  Those first two certifications are pretty common in the beer industry. Companies might want their brewers, distributors, or salespeople to get certified. Restaurants may have their bartenders get Certified Cicerone. But then comes Advanced Cicerone. That test involves coming up with beer pairings for different foods, like you heard Mandy doing at the start of the show. You also need to identify styles and learn about keeping and serving beer. There are even essay questions, things like...

• 7:38Speaker 01

  What is the history of a Weizenbake? And give me four commercial examples of a Weizenbake from three different countries. Something like that. So you have to kind of write about where the style come from, compare the different commercial examples, and know off the top of your head, like, all these different examples.

• 7:53Dan Pashman?

  When Mandy took that test, there were only about 100 Advanced Cicerones in the world. She passed on the first try. She's basically like the Michael Jordan of beer tests.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Felt freaking great. I was so excited. I was, I was totally ready to be like, you know, I learned so much taking it, like, I'm ready to do it again, or like, retackle the tasting. So I was really excited, because I actually also did really well on it. So that was, yeah, really exciting.

• 8:20Dan Pashman?

  That was 2019. As Mandy worked her way up through the Cicerones, she decided to quit her day job in marketing to focus on being a beer writer and educator. She started writing articles for websites and magazines, leading tastings and teaching classes. But she wasn't done taking tests. She still wanted to get to the mountaintop, Master Cicerone.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  When you start getting into Advanced Cicerone and Master Cicerone, it becomes kind of more, I describe it as more kind of like vision quest kind of stuff.

• 8:49Dan Pashman?

  This is Neil Whitty. He's a Master Cicerone, and he's also the Associate Director of Exams for the Cicerone Certification Program. He says for him, getting to the highest level of the program didn't have much of a practical purpose.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  I wasn't going for Master Cicerone because it's like, boy, as soon as I get this, I'm gonna put Master Cicerone on my resume, and, you know, I'm gonna get XYZ job. It just, it doesn't work like that. You know, there isn't a job description out there that says must be Master Cicerone.

• 9:18Dan Pashman?

  While that might be true, Mandy felt like for her career, becoming a Master Cicerone would have very tangible benefits.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  It's definitely something that I feel like a lot of women go up against, is like needing these certifications to prove that we're worthy, and I don't know that that's necessarily a good thing, but it is important to me. I think it's a nice thing to say, "Hi, I want to host your event, and I am an expert, and I'm one of only 20 in the world." Or, "Hi, you know, I want to host your TV show," or do, or really speak on behalf of beer, and that proves that I know my way around any question, like, I'm not gonna get blindsided. Even if it's walking into a cooler at a professional brewery and fixing their kegs, I will definitely know how to do that once I pass this test, so...

• 9:59Dan Pashman?

  Out of the 19 Master Cicerones in the world, only three are women. I asked Neil how they'd benefit from having more women at that highest level.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  I think, you know, the beer business in general has not done itself many favors over the years in drawing in people other than white men. You know, it's, it's well documented that, that the beer business has a diversity issue. And insofar as we can help to make the industry more diverse, I think we're just helping the beer business in general. I think it helps everybody to bring everybody into this umbrella, because beer is for everybody.

• 10:43Dan Pashman?

  The Master Cicerone Test is two full days and it's only given once a year, in person, in Chicago. Most of the people who take it work for a beer company and they have the support of their company. Some of them are able to take time off to prep for the test. The company might even pay for the exam fees, prep classes and materials. It costs a thousand dollars to take the test the first time, 800 for each subsequent try. And most people take it multiple times before passing. As we said, Mandy's a freelance beer writer and educator. She doesn't have that support. After acing all the other tests, she studied for six months before taking the Master Cicerone exam in October 2019.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Definitely a shock on the Master Cicerone exam.

• 11:21Dan Pashman?

  What happened?

• 11:22Speaker 01

  So what I was talking about with advance, right? You're in the room with a proctor, but now instead of sitting across the table and him handing you a beer and saying, taste this, you walk into a room at an active brewery and they say, this draft line is messed up, like troubleshoot it and go fix it. I actually took a keg, like care course because I knew this was going to happen. But still, I still like kind of walked in and start seeing torn gaskets and like looking at screwdrivers and being like, whoa, I'm like, I kind of knew on the first day I was out of my depth. I was just not ready.

• 11:52Dan Pashman?

  For the first time in her life, Mandy failed a beer test. She got a 73 out of 100, passing is 85. She planned to take the exam again the following year, but it was canceled because of COVID. As she and I sit at the bar, it's August 2021. Mandy's going to take the Master Cicerone exam again in a few months, two years after her first attempt. She's spent at least $10,000 of her own money prepping for and taking this test. She's been able to parlay her food and beer writing into a deal for a book about flavor. And she's continued doing freelance marketing work on the side to help pay the bills. Mandy has a few reasons for really wanting to pass this test. For starters, there are 19 Master Cicerones and she really wants to be in the first 20. But more than that.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  I think having a Master Cicerone who's a little outside the industry, who can speak to consumers a little more directly and maybe speaking their language a little bit more is a really important move, not just for Cicerone, but for the beer industry. Like having, especially a woman, I've got to say, that's kind of more focused on, let's talk to people who are just getting into a hobby or just getting into the industry, who feel uncomfortable in beer spaces right now. That's something that's really driving me. It's still that like original mission that I think this is a big step in the right direction of.

• 13:03Dan Pashman?

  So like with so many things, it sounds like there's some element of sort of like, you gotta be in the in-crowd to get in.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Right. Which is definitely a tough place for me coming from, you know, I'm not coming from a Miller Coors or Sam Adams or any of those. So I do have a little bit of like worry about that, but I think it's kind of one of those things where it's like, if you're so good, they can't say you're bad. So I'm just getting ready to be so good.

• 13:35Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, we hold a little study session at Carmine Beers. And later on, Mandy flies to Chicago for the Master Cicerone test. How will it go? We'll find out. Stick around.

• 13:51Dan Pashman?

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• 15:27Dan Pashman?

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• 16:11Dan Pashman?

  thoughtfully crafted and made to be worn again and again. So find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was The Sporkful. It's the best way to support the show. Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. Last week on the show, we did an episode that I had been wanting to do for years. I was always like, it'd be so fun to do a ride along on an ice cream truck. Well, last week, my dreams came true. We go inside the world of the ice cream truck business. But before I get to go in a truck, Sporkful managing producer Emma Morgenstern tells

• 16:55Dan Pashman?

  the tale of her great uncles who owned a fleet of ice cream trucks starting in the 1940s. The whole story is complete with sibling rivalries, California dreaming, and the exact right speed to drive a truck to maximize profits.

• 17:07Speaker 03

  I figured out that seven miles an hour was about the right speed to drive. Okay. But five was too slow and 10 was way too fast.

• 17:16Dan Pashman?

  Then I hang out with a local celebrity in my town, Connor Hallis, who drives a soft serve truck. Connor has developed a lot of tricks to keep customers happy, like avoiding the double cones. You know the cones that have one pointy bottom with two separate cup parts that are fused together that each hold ice cream?

• 17:30Speaker 04

  Like my first year, I gave a double cone to a kid and I kid you not, the mom came out running. How dare you give my kid a double cone? It's huge. Like, you know, why don't you ask me this and that? And so I just, I always have like, keep an empty box with me, you know, to put garbage in or whatever. And like, I show the kids and then I show them the empty box. I'm like, hey buddy, look, like I don't have any more cones, no more doubles left. And then, you know, they stop crying and then the mom gives me the wink.

• 17:56Dan Pashman?

  After listening to this episode, I promise you'll never look at your local ice cream truck the same way again. It's up now, check it out. Okay, back to our episode with Mandy Naglich, who's studying to become a Master Cicerone. We're at Carmine Street Beers, cramming for the big test. So Mandy, I can't really help you with the beer, the tap lines, the draft lines, but I could help you with the tasting.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:20Dan Pashman?

  You ready to do a little study session right here?

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:23Dan Pashman?

  Carmine Street Beers, where we are right now, has over 500 beers to choose from. So it's a perfect place for Mandy to prep for the Master Cicerone exam. And I am happy to be her study buddy. This is just what friends do for friends. The first skill Mandy wants to practice, tasting a beer and naming the specific style. So like an IPA or a Hefeweizen or a stout, there are more than 100 styles in all. I sneak off to the other side of the bar to confer with the bartenders. Shane and Steve, right?

• 18:50Speaker 05

  Nice to meet you. Yep, good to meet you.

• 18:52Dan Pashman?

  We're helping Mandy study for the Master Cicerone test. All right, so we gotta pick three to five styles of beer to try to stump Mandy. Shane disappears for a few minutes and comes back with four bottles. What do we got here Shane?

• 19:06Speaker 05

  All right, so first up, we have the Fabulant from Shillings. It's a Heller Weizen box, so it's got a little bit of the banana clove thing. That one's a kind of an off kilter style. I'd be kind of curious to see if she can pick that up pretty immediately. Next, I have Schlenker's Smoked Marzen. It's a pretty classic, very well-known kind of German one. Next up, we have a classic triple American IPA from Sierra Nevada, the Optimum. And then to wrap it up, we have another classic beer, the Latrap Quad, which is a very kind of heavy Belgian dark beer.

• 19:41Dan Pashman?

  Shane cracks open the beers and pours some of each into glasses. He pours the same flight for me, so I can taste along with Mandy. He also writes me a little cheat sheet and brings the four glasses over to our table.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Thank you, guys.

• 19:52Dan Pashman?

  Thank you. All right, Mandy. This is a study session, we're trying to replicate test conditions. What would be the first thing I would do?

• 19:58Speaker 01

  So the first thing I'm going to do for each one really quick is just go through the whole flight and give them each like a short sniff and then like a little bit of a longer sniff. So like, and then you kind of take it away to just kind of let your brain think about what it smelled and then a little bit longer, let it warm up a little bit. I'm gonna do care pipe for it in a different glass.

• 20:20Dan Pashman?

  No, go for it. Mandy explains that glasses can have off flavors from dish detergent, or they could be hot after they come out of the dishwasher. In the exam, she'll be tasting from plastic cups. So in order to ensure true test conditions, she brought her own plastic cups.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  A trick.

• 20:37Dan Pashman?

  I have to say, it's a little bit hilarious to me that the Master Cicerones are tasting beer in plastic cups. I mean, what is this, a frat party?

• 20:42Speaker 01

  I mean, frat boys had it right, I guess. They're not going to contaminate their beer at all. But the important thing about these plastic cups is you can create a seal with the top of your hand and like swirl it.

• 20:53Dan Pashman?

  Oh.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  And that's just gathering all the aroma in there.

• 20:56Dan Pashman?

  So you use like seal the top essentially, you pour the beer into the plastic cup, now you put your hand over the top and now you're swirling it around to like, get it all sudsy in there. Now she's got her nose in there. She's a.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  So I got like a hint of banana on that one, so I'm just gonna like make a banana note. Then you kind of go to the next one.

• 21:14Dan Pashman?

  Now on to number two.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Oh, that one's like huge roasty. It's funny because you can kind of tell the head has a little bit of creaminess to it. It's almost like campfire to me, like definitely huge roast. It's definitely going to be in some kind of stout category.

• 21:28Dan Pashman?

  Okay, we're moving to number three.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  This is going to be some kind of American. It's got like that really hop forward, you don't get anything from east on it. It's not quite tropical hops though, they're a little like florally, maybe a little forest floor going on. So I'm just going to write American and move on. Number four, wow, that one's kind of crazy. I'm not sure if that one like wants to be a little Belgian. It's like big banana candy flavor to me. And you can see when I'm swirling it, you get like all of this head.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Now, we're gonna go back and give each one a retro nasal sniff. I don't know if you're familiar with the retro nasal sniff.

• 22:09Dan Pashman?

  I am familiar, yeah, retro nasal olfaction, which is like up the back of your throat.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:13Dan Pashman?

  So like you hold a little bit of it in your mouth and kind of, oh, she's holding her nose, like she's about to jump in a pool. She took a sip of beer and she's swirling around her mouth. Interesting.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  And then you really blow out your nose.

• 22:24Dan Pashman?

  Oh, so you get the aroma up the back of your throat and then blow it out your nose? It's like a reverse sniff?

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the thing is, your brain doesn't really understand what's going on, so it actually puts the flavor that you're smelling in your mouth like you're tasting it. Um, so like you can actually feel your mouth kind of fill with flavor sometimes, like especially on isomethyl acetate, which is that banana flavor.

• 22:43Dan Pashman?

  All right, I'm afraid I'm gonna snarf this beer all over my microphone, but I'm gonna give it a shot.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you hold your nose, take in a breath.

• 22:48Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Then you put it in your mouth, swirl it around your mouth so all the surfaces are covered. Then you're gonna exhale out your nose, but keep your lips shut and kind of see if you feel like a flavor is filling your mouth.

• 22:59Dan Pashman?

  All right. Here I go. Oh, yeah. As soon as you let go of your nose, it kind of like just fizzes up through your whole situation.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, like when I'm teaching people that, I like, a cinnamon tea is a really good way to do it because all of a sudden, even though you just swallowed it, there's no tea left in your mouth, when you let go of your nose, it's like all of a sudden, there's cinnamon filling your mouth, you know?

• 23:21Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Um, so yeah, we're gonna go down the line on that.

• 23:24Dan Pashman?

  Mandy retro nasally sniffs all four of her beers. Then she takes some sips, she looks at the beers closely, and she's ready to make her guesses. She starts with the one that she thinks she can identify best, which is beer number two.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Number two, I'm going with, so it's actually quite, like you can see those ruby highlights coming through. Most stouts will be almost black, so I usually don't let appearance affect me until like right at the end. Um, that roast is so overwhelming, though, that I can't imagine, oh, no, it's smoked beer. It's a Rausch beer.

• 24:00Dan Pashman?

  Oh, it's like it just clicked.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Well, because I was like, what is going on with this color? That's like, it's totally not, and it's right, it's not the like flavor of roasted barley, it's the flavor of actual smoke.

• 24:10Dan Pashman?

  So what's Rausch beer? What does that mean?

• 24:13Speaker 01

  So it's a, if they smoke some of the malts way back in the day when they couldn't help but smoke malt when they were making beer, basically all malt was smoky because if you were gonna get any dark color, like, they couldn't get rid of the smoke. So it's kind of a bit of an ode to that, I mean, there's still beers that are made that way in Bonnberg in Germany. Um, but it's some kind of Rausch beer, I would say now. It's missing that bacony thing to me now. Um, but I would say it's something with smoked malt in it. It's not roasted barley.

• 24:40Dan Pashman?

  You are correct. It is a Rausch beer. It is the Schenkerla Rausch beer Marzen.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  All right, so that's like the classic example of Rausch beer. I gotta say, it's something that I don't practice on, so I'm always like, oh, if I smell a Rausch beer, I'll know. Or actually, I think it's Rauk beer, actually.

• 24:55Dan Pashman?

  Okay, maybe.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Not something I say out loud very often. But um, I, yeah, I've always kind of thought like, oh, the minute I smell that, I'll know and move on, but there you go.

• 25:03Dan Pashman?

  Well, glad we had a refresher here.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  There you go. Now, when I get on the test, I'll be like, thank you, sport.

• 25:09Dan Pashman?

  Mandy moves on to beer number three.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  I wanna be like this American one, right? Like, I kind of picked it up and I was like, okay, I'm pretty sure it's American. I tasted it, I was like, I'm pretty sure it's American. And now I'm kind of like, is it American pale ale? Is it, I don't think it's dark enough to be an amber ale. I think it's too much to be a blonde. Um, pale ale and IPA kind of overlap. Okay, so I'm gonna go with number three, I think, is an American pale ale.

• 25:30Dan Pashman?

  Okay. That is the Sierra Nevada Hoptemo. So Sierra Nevada is a pale ale?

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Is it an IPA or is it a pale ale?

• 25:38Speaker 05

  It's a triple IPA.

• 25:39Dan Pashman?

  Wow. A triple IPA. So does that, does that mean you were correct or not correct?

• 25:41Speaker 01

  I would say not correct because it's gonna have higher alcohol. So now we're down to the two.

• 25:46Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, number one and number four.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Um, that I wrote medium bitterness, some drying on this one. I'm starting to feel like that one's a little bit German, but I don't know why, but I'm just trying to like trust my brain. The first one I'm gonna say is some kind of style of Pilsner. Yeah, I feel like I get some roundness on it.

• 26:00Dan Pashman?

  It's chilling fabulous.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Is that a Pilsner?

• 26:04Speaker 05

  So I threw a curveball, it's a Hell or Weizenbok.

• 26:07Dan Pashman?

  A Hell or Weizenbok.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  So it's like a Hellis Bok, but with some wheat. It's also quite clear, though, but, okay, so that, that'll show you.

• 26:15Dan Pashman?

  That sounds like a tough one, though.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  I would say that's not like a totally a real style necessarily. So a Hellis Bok would be like the big brother of a Pilsner, basically. So it's a little bit higher alcoholic. Would this be like 6% maybe?

• 26:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think around 6%.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:28Dan Pashman?

  So Mandy didn't quite nail that one. She still has one more beer to call.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  It's definitely somewhere between Belgian and German style. It's like sweet, so now I'm kind of, mm. And also I'm writing down English barley wine, question mark. So this is what I was telling you that I don't wanna have at the test. And it's got like a lot of this like interesting like candied character that I almost thought was like artificial fruit at first, which would make you think it's gonna be Belgian. It's so sweet. It's like, right now, I'm going through all the Belgian beers in my head, right? There's like Belgian Double, I think it's a little too clear and a little too light to be like a Belgian Double. Triple, I don't think it's quite bitter enough. It's also a little bit dark in color. Dark Strong, obviously not, there's not enough alcohol there, I don't think.

• 27:11Dan Pashman?

  Mandy's holding it up to the light. Is there a time limit on this test?

• 27:14Speaker 01

  It's normal. 15 minutes for seven of them. So I was gonna say, what are we coming up on?

• 27:20Dan Pashman?

  All right, all right. So we, we need an answer here, Mandy.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  All right. I'm like freaking out now.

• 27:26Dan Pashman?

  Well, look, this is pressure, but we know, we need it.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, the microphone is throwing me off, that's what it is, people.

• 27:30Dan Pashman?

  No, that, that does add pressure, I'm sure, but you know, it's gonna be pressure on the day of the test, too, so.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  All right, fourth one, I'm gonna say, how about Crystal Vicent?

• 27:42Dan Pashman?

  That's Belgian?

• 27:43Speaker 01

  No, that's German.

• 27:45Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  No, I don't know, I can't think of a style that would be this clear. Let's just call it a Belgian Double.

• 27:50Dan Pashman?

  Okay. It is a Belgian Quad.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 27:53Dan Pashman?

  La Trapp Quadruple, but, um.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  That's a zero, because that's like a perfect example of the style, La Trapp Quad. So when you look at this, right, I wrote high alcohol yeast character. So I should have narrowed it down to either being like Weizenbok, Doppelbok, Quad, Golden Strong, and just stuck with that. Like, English barley wine throwing out there, that's just me doubting myself. Um, I actually talked to a master sommelier. He had to take the tasting four times, and I was like, what finally like was the thing for you? And he's like, it's just not trying to put something in the glass that's not in the glass.

• 28:26Dan Pashman?

  I like that advice, though.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:28Dan Pashman?

  There's probably like a larger life lesson in that.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 28:31Dan Pashman?

  I'm kind of glad you didn't get all the answers right.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Me, too.

• 28:35Dan Pashman?

  Because I think that like, that's how you learn.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 28:41Dan Pashman?

  So Mandy only got one of the four beer styles totally correct. Coming up, I give Mandy a different test where she has to identify off flavors in beer. Then later, she takes the Master Cicerone exam and gets her results. Stick around.

• 29:01Speaker 01

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• 29:06Dan Pashman?

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• 30:20Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back. I'm with Mandy Neglisch at Carmine Street Beers, and there's one more thing she wants to practice. Sometimes in the process of selecting ingredients for your beer, or brewing it, or running lines from kegs to taps, something goes wrong, and it makes the beer taste off. In the Master Cicerone test, Mandy will have to identify off flavors in beers and diagnose the issue that caused the bad taste. For example.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Things like, so yeast makes a ton of flavors during fermentation, and there's something like an ester that could be like ethyl acetate, that's, it smells like nail polish. So if you spill a bunch of nail polish or nail polish remover, you're gonna know that you fermented your beer too hot. If you, if you have the sensory at a, as a brewer and you smell that, you're like, okay, next fermentation, we're gonna tamp down the fermentation temperature.

• 31:03Dan Pashman?

  Mandy has brought a set of additives that she can add to a beer to give it one of the off flavors. They're like these little clear plastic pills, each with a different color powder inside. This looks like, this is like Alice in Wonderland level right here. Mandy leaves the table. I get three identical cups of beer from Shane, the bartender. I keep one unadulterated as the control. Then I add a different powder to each of the other two. This is how it works in the actual test. They will tell Mandy which one is the control, and she can use that as a baseline. When she comes back to the table, she starts going through the same process. Swirling, sniffing.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  We did the short sniff.

• 31:36Dan Pashman?

  She tastes number one, the control, then sniffs number two, which has been altered or spiked.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Number two, before tasting it, I'm guessing it's four vinyl guaya call.

• 31:45Dan Pashman?

  What makes you say that?

• 31:47Speaker 01

  It has that like clovey, like baking spice thing to it that I don't feel like I recognize in the control. So yeah, I think on that, I think number two, I'm going to write four, four DG.

• 31:57Dan Pashman?

  Four vinyl guaya call.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:59Dan Pashman?

  Mandy moves on to the second spiked beer.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  It almost is like it's flattened the whole flavor of what the base beer is, um, which is what a flaw will do. It's determining what flaw that could be. Can't tell if it's like a little bit cheesy or a little bit eggy. Sulfur is super volatile. It's like the minute you pour it, you have to put your nose in there. It also will be gone.

• 32:20Dan Pashman?

  Mandy has her entire nose inside a plastic cup.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  And taking little short sniffs too. Don't want to dry out your mucus or else.

• 32:27Dan Pashman?

  Interesting. Short sniffs to prevent mucus drying.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. If you lose your mucus, you're done. You can't taste anything.

• 32:32Dan Pashman?

  Oh, man.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  I think I'm going to go H2S on that. Hydrogen sulfide?

• 32:38Dan Pashman?

  You are correct.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 32:41Dan Pashman?

  And you got both of them.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Really?

• 32:42Dan Pashman?

  Yes.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 32:43Dan Pashman?

  Four vinyl guaya call and H2S.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 32:47Dan Pashman?

  You actually got them both. You called them before you even tasted them.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah. It's tasting just like a confirmation.

• 32:52Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  It's all about aroma. Do you want to smell these? I did drink out of both of them.

• 32:55Dan Pashman?

  Okay, sure, sure.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  So this is the four DG.

• 32:58Dan Pashman?

  Okay. Yeah, I would not get cloves or Christmas time from this.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:02Dan Pashman?

  You know, um, it just, it just smells like a different kind of beer.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:06Dan Pashman?

  That's all. That's the best I can do. Like, it's like beer, but different from the other beer. You said four vinyl guaya call would be like this Christmas time flavor or whatever, but like, why is that bad? Like, why would you not want that in your beer?

• 33:17Speaker 01

  So if it is like a German wheat beer, you definitely want that. That's like signature to it. But anything else, so say you're trying to make an American pale ale and you want like this big citrus hop flavor, you want very little yeast flavor, but you're getting this like weird clove, like random, it's a phenol, like a random yeast flavor. You, it would mess up all of your beautiful orange, like character from the hops. You would just get this weird, like spicy clovey flavor.

• 33:40Dan Pashman?

  Got it. So it's not necessarily bad if it's what you want, but if it's not the type of beer you're trying to make, then it would mean that you screwed up something.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 33:50Dan Pashman?

  So Mandy, after this test session.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:54Dan Pashman?

  How are you feeling?

• 33:55Speaker 01

  Feeling pretty good, especially this off flavor because there's like a huge, we have a list of like 28, it could have been. So getting both of them, I feel good about that.

• 34:05Dan Pashman?

  What's your big takeaway from this study session?

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Um, I think the big takeaway is just go, go with your gut.

• 34:11Dan Pashman?

  On both of those, you pretty much knew right off the bat.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Right. And then you guessed yourself.

• 34:15Dan Pashman?

  Second guessing and wondering and tormenting. And so trust your nose.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:20Dan Pashman?

  Keep moving.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  There you go. And it's pretty cool. I mean, I still have a couple of months, so this is, this is making me feel good.

• 34:26Dan Pashman?

  Good. I'm glad. You're in good shape. Will you call me after you take the test?

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely.

• 34:36Dan Pashman?

  For the next three months, Mandy studies hard. Imagine a Rocky Balboa style montage, but instead of punching slabs of meat, she's crushing empty beer cans on her forehead. Early November, she flies out to Chicago for the two day exam. When the first day is complete, we connect by Zoom. Mandy in her Airbnb. I see some beer in the kitchen.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's from this morning. I just like tasted it and ran out the door.

• 35:01Dan Pashman?

  So just like first off reactions, like give me, how, how are you feeling besides being tired?

• 35:07Speaker 01

  I actually feel incredible. I feel like 180 compared to this timeline.

• 35:10Dan Pashman?

  Mandy tells me she feels great, much better than after day one last time. She thinks she's just more prepared this time around.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  You're still nervous that you don't know everything, but I really was, every question that I was asked, I felt like I had an immediate answer to.

• 35:23Dan Pashman?

  Did anything happen that had you nervous that you didn't feel good about?

• 35:26Speaker 01

  The last tasting panel where we have to kind of like technically describe four random samples, I don't feel like I did great on. It's also the last thing of the day and I was like so tired. Um.

• 35:37Dan Pashman?

  So for the part where you had to identify beers that they were just going to put in front of you, like, how did that part go?

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, so we don't know what they, they gave us and, um, there's been times where I'm like, oh, is this grapefruit? Is this blood orange, something like that? But I feel like I was like nailing that kind of stuff.

• 35:51Dan Pashman?

  Mandy tells me there are four others taking the test with her. It's three women, including Mandy, and two men. All the others work in the beer industry. After the exam, they all gathered outside and compared notes.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  I think we all are feeling it seemed spot on. Like there was nothing that felt super like they were trying to trick us. This is like where everything's still feeling good and hopefully it's like I come back out tomorrow and I feel the same. You know, it's like that moment where it's like, I'm thinking things could all work out, but you know, I also could totally blow it tomorrow, but we're not going to go down that path.

• 36:25Dan Pashman?

  After day two, I give Mandy another call.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Hello?

• 36:31Dan Pashman?

  Hey, I hear partying noises in the background. Is there a party happening?

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Light partying. We're just at the brewery across the street.

• 36:39Dan Pashman?

  So, so, I mean, I'm dying to hear what, what happened? How did it go?

• 36:43Speaker 01

  I mean, I think it went well, not as well as yesterday. I was hoping for like a total repeat of yesterday, but we're still looking good. I mean, I'm out drinking beer, not home crying.

• 36:52Dan Pashman?

  What specifically makes you feel less confident today?

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Um, there was just a few. So I feel like yesterday was like through and through, like they asked an essay question and I like already knew what I was going to write. And today was like, I definitely spent some time, I actually took a long walk to the bathroom in the middle of my essay writing to just like try to jog my brain. It's like, I was like, I know I've read these things and I've studied these things, but like it's like exactly what I want to write is like not popping into my brain.

• 37:17Dan Pashman?

  I'm going to ask you to predict your score, Mandy.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:24Dan Pashman?

  Eighty-five is passing. What's your prediction?

• 37:28Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean,

• 37:31Speaker 01

  I feel like I'm either going to get an eighty-six or an eighty-four.

• 37:51Dan Pashman?

  After Mandy finishes the test, industry experts and other master Cicerones spend the next few weeks grading the exams. Neil from the Cicerones tells us they use detailed rubrics and multiple graders look at every question to ensure consistency. Typically, the Cicerones reach out the first week of December, a month after the test, to schedule a call and give you your results. But that time comes and goes and Mandy doesn't hear anything. Finally, on December 16th, six weeks after finishing the test, Mandy gets the call. As soon as it's over, oh, wait, wait, it's just coming. Mandy's connecting to the Zoom.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Hello?

• 38:28Dan Pashman?

  Hello? Just tell me what, what happened? Did you pass?

• 38:32Speaker 01

  I got an eighty-three. Um, so no, uh, it's eighty-five to pass, so.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  That's the update.

• 38:45Dan Pashman?

  I'm really sorry.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too, man. Um, so it's still fresh.

• 38:53Dan Pashman?

  Mandy says that of the other four who took the test, one passed, a guy who was trying for the third time, who works for AB Inbev, the company that makes Budweiser, among many others. Mandy's quick to add that he's very deserving. They actually studied together. The others who took the test were trying for the first time and none of them passed.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  And it's crazy because I know other people who have gotten eighty-threes and they take it again and pass. And it's like, how? Yeah, but not doing it. So it's over.

• 39:20Dan Pashman?

  You mean, you, you don't want to take the test again?

• 39:23Speaker 01

  No, I just can't. It's, it's so much time and so much money and I just don't have a company paying for me. And so it's like, I have to do more freelance work to be able to pay for this stuff, like more brand work and like things that aren't really moving my career the way I need it to be going. Like I'm writing this book now and I like, I mean, and of course that's what the proctor on the phone said. He's like, what do you mean? You're not going to take it again? You're so close. And I'm like, I can't, it's like just so much knowledge keeping in your head. And I always am thinking like, what else could I do with that brain space? Um, I would have rather gotten like a seventy-five, honestly.

• 39:55Dan Pashman?

  Right, right.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  You know, um, yeah, it's crazy to say that I'm not going to be able to say that I'm a master Cicerone, but yeah, it's weird. I'm not used to not passing things, so.

• 40:12Dan Pashman?

  To Mandy, the result feels very arbitrary. She's especially upset that she got low marks on food and beer pairings, which is usually her strength. She's writing a book about flavor. Pairing seems so subjective. You know, if they give you an IPA and you say it's a stout, that's just wrong. But this is tough for her to accept. Mandy also thinks the scoring rubrics in the pairing section weren't clearly communicated. A lot of the things she was marked down for not including are things she knew. She just didn't know she was supposed to include them.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah, it's really tough to know that not going to be me in the club, but uh, you know?

• 40:47Dan Pashman?

  Well, I gotta say, Mandy, I feel like this is a real loss for the Cicerones.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Me too. I know. I had like all this feedback that I wanted to give them, just like about the test and like, I have a lot of ideas about how to make it a little easier on candidates and more like welcoming. So more people are taking the test. Like it would have been really cool for someone who doesn't work at like a big brewery to do it, like someone like me. It's definitely a bummer. I think if I would have been able to take it in 2020, I probably would have taken it again in 2021. But it's just like waiting two years and like thinking about waiting another year. It's like, it just feels like I'm like staying in the same phase of my life. And it's like, it's time to go do others. I can't just like be memorizing DJCP stats for years and years and years.

• 41:33Dan Pashman?

  Right. Well, Mandy, I'm really sorry.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 41:38Dan Pashman?

  It would have been really cool to call yourself a master Cicerone, but I don't think you need them.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, me either. I don't either.

• 41:46Dan Pashman?

  I think you're going to write a great book and you're going to do your parents and your events and you're going to be successful at it because you're really good at what you do. And you know, you don't need some people to tell you that.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Thank you. I, I agree. You know, it's nice to have a platform now where I really am teaching people about beer every day and people tell me how much they learn. So I don't need this title to keep doing it, for sure. You need to keep saying it until you believe it, right?

• 42:24Dan Pashman?

  One quick note, since this episode originally aired, a few more people have become Master Cicerones. There are now 28 instead of 20, and five are women. In the time since Mandy took the Master Cicerone test, she's been all over the place. She branched out beyond beer, covering beverage, alcohol, and flavor science. She's traveled internationally to cover some of the world's best bars and to judge cocktail competitions. And she came out with a book. It's called How to Taste: A Guide to Discovering Flavor and Savoring Life. I highly recommend it. It's the kind of thing you're gonna read once and think about for the rest of your life. Again, it's called How to Taste. And Mandy's launching a Substack called Today in Taste. We'll have a link in our show notes. And as if that wasn't enough, man, Mandy is working her butt off over here. She's working on another book about why our senses make us human, especially in the

• 43:08Dan Pashman?

  age of AI. I'm excited for that one. Special thanks to Shane and Steve and all the other folks at Carmine Street Beers, as well as to the Cicerone Certification Organization. Next week on the show, we learn about a very rare genetic condition called Prater-Willi syndrome. One of the hallmarks of the syndrome is hyperphagia, or excessive hunger. People with Prater-Willi never feel satisfied from eating. I talked with a couple whose daughter has this syndrome to learn how they're managing. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful

• 43:53Dan Pashman?

  listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. This episode was produced by me, along with managing producer

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Emma Morgenstern.

• 44:04Dan Pashman?

  and senior producer Andres O'Hara. It was edited by

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Tracy Samuelson.

• 44:08Dan Pashman?

  Our technical director is

• 44:09Speaker 05

  Jared O'Connell.

• 44:10Dan Pashman?

  Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 44:18Speaker 07

  And I'm Steve Darlene in Carver, Minnesota, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 44:42Speaker 07

  Hey, it's me, Teddy Swims. You hear that? That's life. So go grab it. Grab your old friends, grab new friends, grab a White Claw. Grab flavor for everyone in your group. Grab music, laughter, and moments you'll never forget. You'll never regret it. Oh, hey, man. Grab new friends, grab old friends, grab life by the Claw, White Claw. Please drink responsibly. White Claw Celtic Works, Chicago, Illinois.

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