My Road to Cicerone: Thomas Clifford of ONCO Fermentations

Thomas Clifford is a Certified Cicerone from Tully, NY. Here he tells us about his certification journey and provides some helpful tips for aspiring Cicerones.

What’s your current role and how does being a Certified Cicerone help you with it?

I work at ONCO Fermentations in Tully, NY. I oversee sales and distribution. I feel my Cicerone training helps me get my message about our beer out to customer in ways they can understand easier. Understanding beer history and the flavor profiles, its easier to explain how beers compare to other more well-known beers and the nuances of our beer that our brewer wants the consumer to be aware of. 

Describe the factors that made you decide to become a Certified Cicerone.

Whenever I start a new hobby, job, or experience, I am the type of person who goes in whole hog. I got a part-time job at a local bottle shop, and it sparked such an interest in beer that I got the Beer Geek fever. I started researching different books and different colleges that offered programs. None seemed to hit all the aspects that the Cicerone program covered.

Explain some of the challenges you had while studying for the exam, and how did you overcome them?

The hardest challenge was to find like-minded people to study/train within my local area. I do not know if it is the time commitment or passion to learn but I could not organize bottle shares or blind tastings. My wife, while not being the biggest beer lover, stepped up and helped in every way possible for me to get in the reps in the blind tasting department. Every night, after a long day of work, she would set up 3-6 blind beer samples for me to try to guess. She would also quiz me whenever we had downtime. She was my rock during my beer journey.

How did you prepare for the exam? What were the most beneficial resources that you used?

Honestly, I read a lot. Every book I could get my hands on, I used it as a resource. I have over 150 books and magazines in my library about beer. All the Road to Cicerone training books gave great baseline information that I coupled with my additional readings for great results. Also used the great people in the industry for help. I got in touch with a friend because I thought I needed more hands-on experience with commercial-sized brewing. Brewery Ommegang let me come in and brew a Bière de Noel from start to finish, and that really helped understand that process so much more than just fiddling around with a homebrew setup. And finally, social media. The Cicerone community is awesome. Everyone I reached out to, even if they did not know me at all, gave me advice, motivation, and inspiration. I wish I could give them all a shout out, but you know who you are. 

Since becoming a Certified Cicerone, what have been some of your greatest achievements?

With COVID coming through and really putting a damper on our industry, I had to sit back for a while and see where it was going to lead me. My position at my previous job disappeared so I was able to go out and pick and choose where my career was going to go. I used my experiences and my trained palate to find a brewery that fit perfectly with my mindset. At ONCO, even though they have been open for a little over a year, their beer was at a level that I knew that we could both benefit if we joined. It was a match made in heaven, and I cannot wait to see our growth together and where we will be at over the next couple months.

In your opinion, how valuable is Cicerone certification for those looking to boost their career?

I like to consider the Certified Cicerone program as the beer bachelor’s degree. The amount of time I put in with all the reading, all the tastings, and all the work put in while brewing, canning, and just talking with people, was just astronomical. I was not long just a person who worked in the beer industry, I became a person who people see as a leading authority about beer and its industry. Without the training, I feel I would not be giving my all to the consumer/customer. I feel with the Certified Cicerone backing that it allows the customer to trust me and my opinions.

What’s your top study tip for anyone preparing for the Certified Cicerone exam?

For the tasting part, blind-tasting beer every night until you do not really want to drink beer anymore. Hard to believe after the exam, I had to take a break from beer because I was just sick of having to try to taste every flavor coming out of the beers instead of just enjoying the experience. For the written part, the best advice is just dive right into the deep end. It is overwhelming with all the information coming at you, but its broken into sections that you can really focus on and go all out. You almost must become one with the beer. 

Ready to get started? Learn more about the Certified Cicerone exam here!