IBD General Certificate in Brewing

[Will]

Hi folks,

Has anyone sat the general certificate in brewing and how did you find it? I'm interested in taking the online exam in November however I'm based up north and the only course up here ran in April

Are materials available online and is it doable to teach yourself?

[Boycott]

I did it this year. No need to go on a course. Sign up through Institute of brewing and distilling and they send you out 22 pdfs. If you read through them a few times then you should pass. If your a homebrewer you probably know a good but of it or are familiar but its definitely a course based on industry setting. So a bit of engineering etc.

[mcgrath]

I did it last year, I found the course good but the examination wasn't very fair. A lot of questions weren't from the syllabus and multiple choice questions were misleading. You need to get 66% to pass and I reckon about 20% of questions weren't covered in syllabus so it makes it tough to pass. Its a large syllabus which teaches a lot so I don't understand their logic for doing this.
I did it at the same time as another guy from liffey brewers. I did classes and he did it online through the US. What was interesting was that both universities provided online past papers to help you study. You could test yourself and they would tell you where you went wrong and why. We swapped logins to have access to both sets. Both universities gave different answers to a lot of the multiple choice questions. Goes to show how misleading the questions can be. We were both looking for brewing jobs at the time and both took it very serious with preparation. Both of us managed a pass grade which was disappointing for the work put in. A lot of my class failed including one guy working in a brewery. Both myself and my mate were annoyed after the exam and wouldn't have paid to sit a repeat. I got mine paid for through springboard, but I'd be very disappointed if I paid out good money. Maybe they like making money from resits?

[Boycott]

Hmm all the questions for me were definitely in it. The notes were actually too detailed! Did you just go through the notes or you did a day tutor style course? I would agree some of the questions are a little tricky as in all 4 answers can be right but your asked for the most right! Also a good few questions are phrased like 'which is NOT a etc" which can be a little off putting. I finished the exam in 25min.

[mcgrath]

I did a week long course which came with notes then I received course notes from IBD. I studied both pretty thoroughly as I had a few months between course and wasn't working either. When I went through the past papers, the questions I wasn't sure about I looked up in the notes from IBD, pretty easy to do on a computer search being PDF's. The material wasn't on the syllabus. Being past papers I figured the syllabus had changed. But it happened to me on the day too.
The guy I spoke about who also did it now works for a craft brewery in England. The IBD contacted them to see if they would like to have their staff attend the course. He asked them about putting questions on the exam not from the course. They admitted to doing it and gave some lame reason I can't remember. I'll email him and see if he remembers..

[Boycott]

Ok so, thats crazy, i think those courses are a bit of a scam. Those notes from the ibd were way too much detail for the exam i took anyway. Guess they changed their tack a bit

[mcgrath]

If they have changed thats a good move. But there was a huge amount of material which I did some serious graft through. I think that is my biggest gripe. Why then include questions form elsewhere? I am doing a level 8 course at the moment and you are expected to bring in other learnings other than what the syllabus covers. But then again its essay questions not multiple choice.

[UpsidedownA (Andrew)]

I did it back in 2012. I signed up for the examination and they gave me a bunch of pdf notes and I studied in my spare time. I wasn't working at the time, so I had the time. It is a very hard multiple choice style exam with lots of questions that seem right. I am sceptical that there were questions in the exam that weren't in the syllabus/notes, but what gets covered in a third party preparation course might vary from tutor to tutor. A pass is good. Most people sitting the test do not pass. The examiners' reports are available from the IBD website so you can see pass rates and also what the examiners were looking for.

[Will]

Cheers lads. I'll give it a bit of consideration then!