In the cool, carpeted expanse of a McCormick Place meeting hall, 15 men and one woman tapped their toes, drummed their fingers and exhaled nerves through puffed cheeks on a recent Sunday morning. Failing the exam before them would not be good for their careers.

Books and bags were shoved against a far wall and cell phones were ordered off, except for the man who raised a jittery hand to ask if he could leave his on airplane mode "for time-keeping purposes."

The author of the exam, Ray Daniels, considered the request for a moment.

"Sure," he said. "That would be fine."

Future lawyers? Doctors? Not quite.

Beer lovers. These servers, sales people, distributors, buyers and bar owners believe beer is a complex and beautiful beverage that deserves better treatment from bars and restaurants. If they passed the four-hour test, they would become Certified Cicerones -- the rough equivalent to a wine sommelier -- and give imbibers another round of experts who could guide them to great beer.

The Cicerone (SIS-er-rone) exam is an exhaustive array of short answer, tasting and essay questions about brewing, storing, serving beer and pairing it with food. In three years, Daniels has designated 1,400 certified beer servers, 120 Certified Cicerones and one — yes, one — Master Cicerone. Each level demands more expertise.

Daniels, 52, a fringe of salt-and-pepper hair circling the back of his head, was decked in black pleated slacks and a short-sleeve, cream-colored shirt featuring his logo: a flat hand balancing a footed beer glass. He issued instructions, bid the test takers good luck on the three-hour written exam, then ducked behind a white curtain to begin organizing the tasting portion with his part-time assistant, Sarah Huska, who has a tattoo of a hop vine growing up her right arm.

"A lot of people don't believe I get to work with Ray Daniels," Huska, 24, whispered as Daniels poured beer into plastic cups. "This is an industry that breeds groupies, and people adore him."

Which raises a simple question: Why does Ray Daniels get to decide who is equipped to serve beer? Yes, the Uptown resident has traveled the world judging beer, launched festivals and written four books. But the brewing and hospitality industries could just as well have decided that the Cicerone program was meaningless or unnecessary. They did no such thing.

Breweries and distributorships have lined up to take the exam, and restaurants, like the beer-heavy and always-packed The Publican, began mandating that front-of-house employees become certified. As craft beer has inched toward maturity — more breweries, more quality, more distribution and more sales — Daniels correctly guessed that there would be a hunger for standards in beer service, handling and presentation.

"Ray had the credibility to do this," said Paul Gatza, director of the Boulder, Colo.-based Brewers Association, where Daniels worked before launching the program. "He had a network of connections that knew him and knew that if he did it, it would be a quality program. And people wanted it."

After the test takers wandered out of the exam — some confident, some a little shellshocked — Daniels opened a Two Hearted Ale, the smooth, hop-heavy India pale ale from Bell's Brewery, of Kalamazoo, Mich. He called it "my favorite beer," then corrected himself: "Let's say it's the one I drink more than any other."

As we sipped, Robert Johnson, a Lisle bartender who had just finished the test, walked back in. From a polite distance he asked Daniels when they might expect their scores. Then he put his hands together and said, "It's been an honor to meet you."

Huska looked over, smiled and shrugged, as if to say, "See?"

How do you figure out how a renowned beer author, expert, instructor and drinker came to be renowned? Take him drinking, of course. So Daniels and I began a crawl of Lincoln Square bars to see how well beer was being served on a Tuesday night. We started at a dim, woody German bar, a throwback to the neighborhood's ethnic roots.

The bartender, a tall dark-haired woman, ran through a list of German beers unfamiliar to most Americans. Daniels got a Jever pilsner and me, a Kostritzer black lager. He watched the bartender as she started filling our glasses.

"Did she even rinse them?" he asked. "Oh, she did. But she used water from the drink dispenser (in the soda gun). But at least she did put a little water in there."

Daniels believes deeply in the "beer clean" glass, which must be rinsed prior to serving to remove traces of sanitizer. The bartender gave our beers "a classic German pour," he said — straight down the middle, left to settle, then topped off.

This is not Daniels' pouring ideal. His oft-repeated motto is, "It takes two hands to pour a beer," and his method is this: hold the glass at a 45 degree angle, pour along the side, then about halfway through, tilt both glass and bottle vertical. You want an inch or so of head. If you want to be a Cicerone, you'd better know that.

Daniels tipped $3 at the German place ("One for each beer and an extra dollar because the bartender is so cute"), and we headed off to a restaurant down the street with a beer list more than 100 brews strong, alphabetized by style. It was an exhaustive list, and you'd think Daniels would be impressed. Not so much.

"If you're not a beer guy, this is tough," he said. "Could use some judicious editing. And some description of each beer."

We split a Cuvee des Fleurs, a saison from Long Island brewery Southampton. Daniels described it as "aggressively floral," which wasn't exactly a compliment, though we both liked it well enough on a warm night. Our server used one hand to pour and didn't rinse our glasses. Daniels raised an eyebrow, but his mind was on more important topics.

"The biggest problem in American drinking habits is that we don't drink beer all week, then we have five on Friday night," he said. "Better we should make alcohol a part of the diet regularly and moderately, not something for bingeing."

A career in beer was far from his mind as a biochemistry major at Texas A&M; University, where Daniels found his niche more in extracurricular activities than the classroom: the student newspaper, the videotape committee, the concert committee and, during his last year, president of the student union. And his extracurricular activities since college? Glider pilot (now nonpracticing), marathoner (retired), past president of the Chicago Beer Society and founder of the Real Ale Festival.