The Certified Cicerone exam lets you quickly demonstrate that you hold a professional body of knowledge and essential tasting skills related to beer. You'll earn the right to use the title Certified Cicerone® and display the logo on your card and correspondence. You'll also appear in our certification directory, where anyone can verify your status. Certified Cicerones enjoy enhanced respect and prestige to help you succeed in the industry.
Prerequisites: Must have passed the Certified Beer Server exam. Candidates for this level of certification must be of legal drinking age.
Exam Cost: $225 (USD) for written portion of exam; $175 for tasting & demonstration portion. $175 (USD) to retake the written exam; $125 (USD) to retake the tasting exam. Exam fees are non-refundable.
Purchasing Options: To purchase an online or in-person component of the Certified Cicerone exam, view the exam schedule for available dates.
Passing Score: A grade of 80% overall and at least 70% on the tasting portion are required to pass. For more detailed information please see Certified Cicerone® Exam Scoring Breakdown further down this page.
Postponement/Rescheduling:
Please see our Exam Policies page for rescheduling and postponement options
Those who earn this certification have extensive knowledge of beer and beer service and competence in sensory evaluation. This document offers a detailed summary of what to expect from the exam.
The Certified Cicerone® Syllabus presents an outline of the knowledge tested in the exam. Review it to guide your studies and assess your readiness for the exam.
Your first resource should be the syllabus. Certified Cicerone candidates must have detailed knowledge of retail beer storage and service issues, an excellent understanding of modern beer styles, and some familiarity with beer history and historical styles. Competence in identifying flawed beers and recognizing appropriate and inappropriate flavors in beer is required. Candidates must demonstrate a good understanding of beer ingredients, the brewing process, and common principles of pairing beer with food. Consult the Certified Cicerone Syllabus for a comprehensive catalog of the knowledge required.
This challenging exam requires substantial preparation. Use the Certified Cicerone Syllabus to guide your preparations and pursue training and knowledge from a variety of sources. In addition to the study materials we offer, we recommend a number of resources from other suppliers in our Resources & Links section. While an experienced professional or someone with excellent tasting and academic skills might prepare for this exam in as little as six months, many individuals should plan to spend one to two years preparing for this exam.
Those preparing for the Certified Cicerone exam should be sure to review the Certified Cicerone Syllabus. This syllabus outlines all the knowledge that may be tested during the exam and is organized into five knowledge areas:
Overall, the Certified Cicerone exam will be graded so that each of these knowledge areas accounts for a certain portion of the overall grade as shown in parenthesis after each section above.
| Short Answer | Essay | Demo | Tasting Exam | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keeping and Serving Beer | 16.50% | 4.50% | 4.00% | 0.00% |
| Beer Styles | 20.50% | 4.50% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Beer Flavor and Evaluation | 8.25% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 16.75% |
| Beer Ingredients and Brewing Processes | 11.50% | 3.50% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Pairing Beer with Food | 10.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Totals percentage of overall score | 66.75% | 12.50% | 4.00% | 16.75% |
These courses guide your learning through hands-on activities supplemented by readings both from the text and from the Oxford Companion to Beer*. Each online course comes with an accompanying end-of-course quiz to validate your knowledge of the topic. Passing the quiz earns you a digital badge.
*purchased separately
