Hobsons Brewery teamed up with a former CAMRA National Director to create “Beer School”, a training programme for licensees and bar staff looking to improve their knowledge about beer.
The training course, which was delivered at Hobsons Brewery training centre by Brett Laniosh in November, covered beer styles and types including cask, key keg and bottles with a focus from the consumer’s perspective. A popular part of the day covered pub awards including the criteria used by CAMRA volunteers when judging for Pub of the Year. It was explained to the staff from the six pubs attending, how to make the most of CAMRA’s free pub guide WhatPub and also how to maximise chances for appearing in the Good Beer Guide by understanding how the National Beer Scoring Scheme works. As well as practical “hands-on” elements a quiz was included with the winning pub team receiving a case of Hobsons beer.
During the afternoon, former head brewer, Mark Tetlow gave a well received overview of cellar skills that included cask handling, line cleaning, glassware and a cellar visit.
Brett said, “Staff training is an important part of a beer education programme that shares good practice and improves customer service. It is great to work with breweries, licensees and bar staff to raise awareness of beer by developing an education programme that covers both cellar craft and customer care which is also both informative and entertaining.”
