WSET Level 1 Beer · Exam guide

What's actually on the WSET Level 1 Award in Beer exam

If you've never sat a WSET exam before, here's what to expect on exam day — before you get into practice questions.

The WSET Level 1 Award in Beer is the entry point into WSET's beer qualifications. It assumes no prior beer knowledge, and it's designed to be finished in a single day of study for most candidates, including the exam itself.

Format

The exam is 30 multiple-choice questions, to be completed in 45 minutes. Each question has one correct answer among the options given — there's no negative marking, so an educated guess is always better than leaving a question blank. You need 70% correct to pass, and the result is a straightforward pass or fail — there's no merit or distinction grade at this level (that starts at Level 2).

What it covers

Level 1 is built around a simple idea: understand a beer well enough to talk about it, serve it, and pair it with food. Broadly, expect questions from across these areas:

How beer is made

The main ingredients — malt, water, hops, and yeast — and the basic production steps that turn them into beer: malting, brewing, fermentation, carbonation, and packaging.

Beer styles

The major style families you're likely to come across — malt-driven styles like pale lager, brown ale, porter, and stout; hop-driven styles like pilsner, bitter, and IPA; yeast-driven styles like weissbier, saison, and witbier; and sour styles like berliner weisse and geuze — and what sets each one apart.

Storage, service, and food pairing

How beer should be stored, the glassware and pouring technique used to serve it, common faults to recognise, and the general principles for matching a beer's body, bitterness, and carbonation to a dish.

How to use this alongside Cellar Prep

Cellar Prep's Level 1 Beer module mirrors this same shape: a large bank of original multiple-choice questions across these topics, sampled into a 30-question, 45-minute practice exam with the same 70% pass mark, so a practice run feels like the real thing.