Draught Is My Craft: Troubleshooting Life from the Draught Technicians Perspective

This may end up being controversial. But this is not a discussion of Art and style, this is a discussion about putting beer in a glass, rather than in a drain. Something I was taught to do, fairly early on, in this business, was to watch bartenders pour beer. I have done this thousands of times. How many do you think actually do it correctly?      Fewer than 30%, for the most part. The most common mistakes are as follows 1. Touching the faucet to the glass and/or the beer. The faucet and the glass should never make physical contact. Nor should the tip of your faucet ever be submersed in beer or foam. The main reason for this is because after you pour your beer, the residual from that core is exposed to the air . Bacteria and yeast begin to Blue. Flies like to land on that residual beer. Then after an hour you dip that into somebody else's beverage.   2. Opening the faucet and then without a glass underneath it. You've all seen this. Someone opens the faucet and the...

   There are certain... Personalities... that we come across, and have to deal with,  while working within the restaurant, bar, and hospitality industries. I find that there are about 4 main types but I would classify as our nemesis', or at the very least, our frenemies. These are the people that make our lives difficult, day after day. However, these are also the people who keep us employed, as they continue to ignore our advice, and our warnings, resulting in ever larger invoices.      Today I will introduce you to the first, whom I have named Gui(Ghee).  If you are unfamiliar with this French origin nickname, it is the short form of Guillaume. If you live in the Southern United States, you might be familiar with the Spanish version, Guillermo. I imagine there are many other derivatives, but the name is not actually important. You may call this guy whatever you like. I don't wish to be gender biased here, but in my personal experience, this pers...

This is a True story.  You will notice that I do not name the business, nor the town in which it is located. I do this to protect innocent parties. Crappy businesses often have employees, that either have nowhere else to go, or who are bullied into keeping their mouths shut. Furthermore, one or more of the businesses involved may have changed hands by the time I write this story. It would be completely unfair to disparage the new operator, without first seeing if they have made any changes. Usually they have.      In today's tale, I shall tell  of the Horror of the Five Keg Series.       I believe it was late Spring, when I was dispatched to a "Hotel", in a mid-sized city in Southern Ontario, on behalf of a local Craft Brewery. Like many cities of this size, in Ontario, it is fairly isolated. It has one or two smaller satellite cities, but for the most part, is surrounded by farmland or wilderness.  The city is an older one, founded as a...

  As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday, a lot of us have food on the brain. As well we should. When we are dealing with craft Brewers, and bar people, alone, it is never difficult to explain the concept of beer as food. Yet, for some strange reason, this is a difficult concept for chefs, and restaurant GM's to absorb, at times.    One great thing about this job is that you get to have the same conversation over and over again. "How is this great?", you might ask. It's great because you get to practice. How many times in your personal life have you walked away from an argument feeling like you've lost it, and an hour or so later thinking of the perfect retort. It is because we have the same arguments over and over, we get to develop the perfect retort in advance.      I will give you an example.  I was called to get a beer system running in a restaurant that was quite old, but had been purchased by a new owner. They were spending tens of thousa...

I do understand the dangers of generalizing. So, please understand that this is merely an observation, and of course, not everyone is always what they appear to be. Political correctness aside, and journalistic integrity intact, my experience as a Draught Equipment Technician has  taught me that, when approaching any sale, it helped to identify my customer. Knowing who my customer was, in terms of spending appetite, and risk tolerance, was absolutely instrumental in knowing how to approach a sale. And don't you dare recoil at the word sale. We all sell things. Politicians sell ideas and agendas. Religious folks sell "God". Most of my customers sell beer, other alcoholic beverages, not alcoholic craft-beverages, service, or like me, beverage equipment. Just because it is necessary, doesn't mean that it sells itself. I have found that there are three main personalities types, when it comes to decision makers, in restaurants. I am intentionally leaving out a fourth type,...