BJCP National · Lesson 8 · Memory technique (method of loci)

The brewery walk: 12 R0 styles as one route

Commercial examples are 10% of every S0 essay and free points on R0 – pure list recall. Lists are what the method of loci is FOR. This page turns the 12 R0 styles into one walkable route with six rooms. The exam facts are the style→example lists (verified from Guidelines 2021); the route is mnemonic scaffolding – embellish it yourself, self-generated images stick harder.

Aim. Walk the route once a day for a week (90 seconds). By Mock 1 you should produce 2+ examples for any of the 12 styles in under 10 seconds – that is the whole 10% examples sub-score, banked.

The route: six rooms, west to east

Room 1 – Dublin pub (Irish Stout 15B)

Dark wooden bar, nitro tap running: Guinness Draught, Murphy's Irish Stout, Beamish Irish Stout, O'Hara's Irish Stout, Porterhouse Irish Stout, Belhaven Black Stout.

Room 2 – English pub (Strong Bitter 11C)

Cask handpulls on the bar: Bass Ale, Samuel Smith's Organic Pale Ale, Shepherd Neame Bishop's Finger, Bateman's Triple XB, Robinsons Trooper (Iron Maiden on the pumpclip), Summit Extra Pale Ale.

Room 3 – Belgian abbey (Belgian Tripel 26C)

Monks at a long table, golden chalices: Westmalle Tripel (the archetype), Chimay Tripel, St. Bernardus Tripel, La Trappe Tripel, La Rulles Tripel, Val-Dieu Triple.

Room 4 – Munich beer hall (4 styles – the biggest room)

Four long tables under one roof; the same brewery names keep waving at you from different tables:

Table	Guidelines 2021 examples
Festbier 4B	Paulaner Oktoberfest Bier, Hacker-Pschorr Superior Festbier, Augustiner Oktoberfest, Hofbräu Oktoberfestbier, Löwenbräu Oktoberfestbier, Weihenstephaner Festbier
Märzen 6A	Paulaner Oktoberfest, Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest Märzen, Hofmark Märzen, Saalfelder Ur-Saalfelder, Weltenburger Kloster Anno 1050
Weissbier 10A	Schneider Weisse Original Weissbier, Weihenstephaner Hefeweißbier, Ayinger Bräuweisse, Hacker-Pschorr Hefeweißbier, Hofbräuhaus Münchner Weisse, Distelhäuser Hell Weizen
Doppelbock 9A	Dark: Paulaner Salvator, Ayinger Celebrator, Spaten Optimator, Andechs Doppelbock Dunkel, Weihenstephaner Korbinian, Tröegs Troegenator. Pale: Eggenberg Urbock 23º, Riegele Auris 19, Meinel/Plank/Schönbuch/Staffelberg-Bräu Hell versions

Anchor: the -ator suffix marks the Doppelbock table (Salvator, Celebrator, Optimator, Troegenator). Paulaner and Hacker-Pschorr sit at THREE tables each – festbier, märzen, weissbier.

Room 5 – North German pilsner bar + Czech cellar (2 styles)

German Pils 5D	Jever Pilsener, König Pilsener, Rothaus Pils, Trumer Pils, Paulaner Pils, Schönramer Pils, ABK Pils Anno 1907, Bierstadt Slow-Pour Pils
Czech Premium Pale Lager 3B	Pilsner Urquell, Budvar 33 světlý ležák, Bernard světlé ležák 12°, Radegast Ryze hořká 12, Primátor Premium lager, Únětická pivo 12°, Pivovar Jihlava Ježek 11%

Anchor: the cellar has the degree signs (12°, 11%) – Czech numbering. The bar upstairs is dry and bitter (Jever = the bitter benchmark).

Room 6 – American taproom (3 styles)

American IPA 21A	Bell's Two-Hearted Ale, Russian River Blind Pig IPA, Cigar City Jai Alai, Firestone Walker Union Jack, Fat Heads Head Hunter IPA, Maine Lunch
Double IPA 22A	Russian River Pliny the Elder, Stone Ruination Double IPA 2.0, Port Brewing Hop-15, Fat Head's Hop Juju, Columbus Brewing Bohdi, Wicked Weed Freak of Nature
American Porter 20A	Anchor Porter, Deschutes Black Butte Porter, Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, Sierra Nevada Porter, Bell's Porter, Smuttynose Robust Porter

Anchor: Russian River pours at two taps – Blind Pig (IPA) and Pliny the Elder (Double). The porter corner is dark: Anchor, Black Butte, Edmund Fitzgerald.

How to use it (research says)

Walk it, do not read it. Close your eyes, move room by room, RETRIEVE the taps. Peek only after trying.
Make the images yours. The loci effect comes from vivid self-generated imagery – a goat (Bock) headbutting the -ator table beats anything written here.
Two examples per style is the exam dose. The highlighted anchors are the safest picks (archetypes). Full lists are on the SRS cards (deck R0-commercial-examples).
On S0, the walk is 30 seconds of the essay: read the triplet, visit the right rooms, write one tap per style. 10% banked.

Run: scoring artifact.

"Examples = a walk: Dublin nitro, English handpull, abbey chalice, Munich hall (4 tables, -ator = Doppelbock), pils bar + Czech cellar (degrees), American taproom (Russian River pours twice). Two names per style, always from Guidelines."

Primary source

All lists verbatim from BJCP 2021 Style Guidelines, Commercial Examples per category (3B, 4B, 5D, 6A, 9A, 10A, 11C, 15B, 20A, 21A, 22A, 26C), adversarially verified 2026-07-06. Cards: deck R0-commercial-examples.