Hi all-
I see your conversation about the Cicerone exam and the cost vs. ROI and I hear you - that is definitely a challenge. I wanted to let you know, in the event that you are interested in preparing for the more intense exam, we had a group of employees from a large brewery attend one of our courses last year. They were all going to sit for the Cicerone exam. Just a word of warning that this course is not cheap either, but we are excited to offer professional and continuing ed courses from our fantastic expert fermentation science instructors. Up until the past few years, we only had for credit offerings. We have had many more dedicated/passionate home brewers attend some of our beer/cider courses than we ever anticipated so I didn't want to not have you all in the know:
https://pace.oregonstate.edu/catalog/beer-proficiency-testing-and-sensory-analysisObviously, I am promoting our course, but I hope you can read this post as more informative then directly marketing. Since these are relatively new courses, we hope to spread the word amongst the brewing community as best we can. Good luck on all of your decisions with regards to Cicerone testing and retirement decisions!