Charlotte Adds Two Advanced Cicerones
By Todd Bowman
December 27, 2018
Charlotte now has four Advanced Cicerones. And incredibly, half of them work for Pilot Brewing.
Jen Blair and Josh Parrish, both Brewtenders at Pilot Brewing, recently joined this elite cadre of beer serving experts by passing the Advanced Cicerone exam in November. They join Chris Westguard (now of Protagonist Brewing) and Joe Vogelbacher (owner of Sugar Creek Brewing) as the selective few Charlotte residents to achieve this honor. As we end 2018, there are only 122 Advanced Cicerones worldwide. Charlotte is blessed with four of them.
So what in the world is a Cicerone? Longtime beer connoisseur Ray Daniels formed the Cicerone certification program in 2008. Inspired by an unfortunate encounter with some poorly served beer, the author of numerous books on beer and brewing wanted to establish a program targeting those who stand between breweries and their consumers: beer servers.
VIA BEER CHARLOTTE