On February 14th, 2012, the number of Cicerone.org Certified Beer Servers (CBS) reached 10,000. As a present to all of us, the next day the exam was $10 instead of the usual $69, which triggered something like an exam stampede as over 700 people took the 60-question multiple choice exam on all things beer.
We’re waiting for the final tally, but we know that February 15th was the busiest day ever for the Cicerone website, which at times wasn’t able to handle the traffic. The website allows lets you view the number of CBSs by city, so we’ll soon find out how DC stacked up among those 700 [UPDATE: about 900 people passed the exam on February 15th], but an informal tally via Twitter reveals that at least 26 people in the #dcbrews community took and passed the exam. Meridian Pint lead the way, as six of their staff joined the ranks of Certified Beer Servers. Coming in second as an institution was yours truly, DCBeer.com, which now boasts five CBSs now on staff.
Did you take the exam? What did you think of it? More broadly, what do you think of the Cicerone® program and the accreditation of craft beer? Does this make you more likely to sign up for a Certified Cicerone® exam (the next level up)? Let us know in the comments, and if you were one of those who passed the exam, congrats!
[UPDATE to the UPDATE: approximately 1/9th of all who passed the exam are from the Washington, DC metropolitan area, ergo around 100 of us took and passed the exam. Nice work, everyone!]
