Back To Basics: Cellar Management

WHEN IT comes to qualifications to run a pub, the Award in Beer Cellar Quality (ABCQ) must be one of the strongest. The nationally-recognised qualification, accredited by the BII, represents the industry's benchmark in care for what is a pub's engine room - the cellar.

Many brewers offer the course and administer the examination. While the training covers the particular beers and recommendations of the operator in question, the basic content in each is the same.

In her introduction Emma Watts, Fuller's trade quality team leader, and one of its ABCQ tutors, says: "The importance is to stress the quality of the product. What we can say is 'let's get our quality right and train staff to really look after our beer'.

"The aim after this course is for you to be confident in knowing the products and being able to pass that on to other staff. Customers really believe in quality, and the repeat custom that this generates is known as the 'quality spiral'."

The course is split into four modules covering the subjects outlined here.

Module 1: Brewing and Products

The brewing process.​ Provides an insight into how the beer is actually made, something which the brewer hopes will give attendees the knowledge to be able to tell customers about the beer's 'story'.

They are told about how the four basic ingredients - water, barley, yeast and hops - are transformed into the final product; how water makes up 95 per cent of beer and is treated to give it the right characteristics; how fermentation works; and a host of other information.

Tutored tasting.​ The course runs students through a tasting of the finished products and the different types of barley that defines them. Regular malt, for example, tastes like cereal or Ovaltine before picking up flavours of caramel or coffee after a process of roasting.

The beer tasting means students can inform customers about beers - London Pride, for instance, has a toffee and citrus taste with an after-taste of digestive biscuits, drinkers will pick up caramel and citrus with Discovery.

Module 2: The Cellar​

Checking deliveries.​ Deliveries should be thoroughly checked to ensure that what the dray delivers matches what you ordered and is in a useable condition. Expiry dates are especially important to check.

Ullage.​ The correct procedure for returning beer to the brewery. This is defined as beer that is unsellable - for example, if the liquid arrives flat or the container is damaged causing leaks.

Cellar essentials.​ Items which you should always have in your cellar include rubber mallets, corks and spiles, gloves and safety glasses.

Differences between cask and keg.​ Reinforcing the message that cask beer is more complex than lager as it is a live product and must be left in the cellar for its second maturation after delivery, then used within four days once tapped.

Correct storage of gases.​ Gas, and dial systems, should be carefully monitored. Gas bottles in use should be chained upright to walls. Those not in use should be stored horizontally and chocked on the floor.

Temperatures and operating the cooler.​ The correct temperatures at which to serve different types of beer, and a run-through of how to run and maintain remote coolers, which circulate cold water through pythons to cool the beer.

Line cleaning.​ The correct procedure for cleaning lines.

Module 3: Beer Presentation

Ensuring glasses are clean.​ This recommends a simple test to check your glasses are clean (see diagram). Glasswashers should be thoroughly cleaned and have salt added to them regularly, and should not be used to clean certain items - including ash trays, and cups that have contained milk.

Pouring Advice.​ How to impress customers with the pour, including holding the glass at its base, ensuring the head takes up no more than five per cent of the glass and never refilling a used glass.

Module 4: Cellar Safety​

Readying the cellar for deliveries.​ Checking that external entrances to the cellar are unobstructed, making sure that drop mats are in place and that lighting is working.

Use of gas pressure systems.​ It is important that these are not tampered with as no attempts should be made by licensees or staff to adjust them. Any damages or leaks should be reported immediately.

My day as a trainee cellarman: pouring cleaner and poring over an exam paper

I HAD been squirted with water, had managed to tip line cleaner on the floor and had been forced to wear over-sized goggles and marigolds worthy of a 1940s housewife.

And that was before a high-speed encounter between my thumb and a rubber mallet while attempting to hammer a spile into a barrel of London Pride.

All in a day's work for this inexperienced publican at an ABCQ course at the Fuller's Griffin Brewery in Chiswick, London.

The course, it must be said, involved a whole lot of back-to-school style work, albeit sitting ina classroom that smelled slightly more of beer than an average comprehensive's.

Working cellar​

There was, though, a more engaging, practical part. In the brewery's working cellar and bar, the tutor had run her group of aspiring pub managers through line cleaning, how to tap a barrel and how to pour the perfect pint.

Funnily enough, after I let on I had never had any practical experience in a cellar, it all involved using me as a subject for the demonstrations.

I have always held firm opinions on which side of the bar is my favourite, and it certainly isn't the side from which the drinks are actually poured. Some may label me a hypocrite for writing about elements of the pub trade without having this grounding myself. My fellow students certainly thought so, as they sniggered at my haplessness.

The same can never be said, though, after my trial underground in Chiswick. If I ever doubted it, I now fully appreciate how technical and difficult the job is.

I tried to haul up what I'd learned through this ordeal during the exam at the end of day.

With a gap of several years since the last time I took any kind of formal academic trial, I could really feel the pressure. This is despite the fact that, unlike my fellow students, it is not entirely necessary to advance my career - only to massage my vanity.

Poring over the multiple-choice exam paper, I tried to remember the primary reasons for fobbing and the list of articles which must not be put into a glasswasher, all facts which I can only vaguely recall being taught during the day.

Fuller's tells me the result, whether I've passed or failed, is in the post. I await this with bated breath.