Publicans – A Call to Action!
Clean. Care. Communicate
An insider article by Mark Tetlow
So, what do I mean by Clean. Care. Communicate?
Recently I undertook a very unscientific survey. Using social media, I asked a potential audience of 15,000 people what they consider to be the main quality failures of beer dispensed in pubs. I was surprised by the number of responses I had and also by the fact that the comments were very similar in nature. The three main areas of concern were, beer line hygiene, glassware condition, and the lack of product knowledge of the bar staff.
My findings were backed up by the recent Cask Marque Cask Report 2017 which again highlighted these three areas as being of concern. Add to this the decision of a major craft beer brewer to come out of cask beer production because they believe that their products are not dispensed to the standards that they require, and a major beer writer deciding to stop drinking cask beer because of poor standards and you begin to see that as an industry we have a problem.
Meeting the Challenges
I have always believed that there is no such thing as problems, only challenges. As an industry the solution to all of this is in our own hands and the answer is really simple, it’s all about training people on how to handle and sell beer. Short-focused bespoke training packages, delivered within the pub, addressing the issues of how to maintain the hygiene standards of the dispense equipment, how to handle cask beer preparation, and a basic knowledge of the product flavour profiles on sale would address the issues we currently face.
Brewers spend hundreds of thousands of pounds designing and running quality systems within their breweries to ensure that the beer leaves in the best possible condition. The last part of the quality chain is in the pub and we need to ensure that we resource this in the same manner. After all, if you do a risk assessment of the whole production chain the final point i.e., dispense, is arguably the most important.
So this is my call to action, if we want to continue to serve some of the best beers in the world, meet, and I believe exceed, our customers’ expectations, we need to train and support our licensees in the areas of hygiene, handling and product knowledge.
CLEAN. CARE, COMMUNICATE.
Mark Tetlow is the founder of The Beer Hub – an important resource for the hospitality industry interested in furthering their expertise with regard to brewing processes; safety, quality and consistency of serve as well as staff training on serve and beer and food pairing.