Arming you for success

We showed the new CellarCraft website to our colleague Paul Crolla over at Robinsons Brewery  to garner his thoughts about how useful it will be as part of a breweries and publicans resources. Robinsons are one of the UK’s largest independent family brewers with pubs throughout the North West and Wales.

Part of Paul’s job is to train new Robinsons publicans on best practice in all areas of cellar, bar and beer management, as well as ongoing training for publicans and their staff. His remit is huge, with over 300 tied pubs under his care!

First impressions count

Paul took a tour of the website and told us ‘My first impression was that I was very impressed with the way information was presented. It’s going to be an excellent resource for publicans and their staff due to its visual nature. The posters and guide are clearly laid out and easy to follow, making it a great crib sheet and reminder of best practice in all areas of cellar/bar/beer management and glass preparation.’

Tooling up tenants

Ensuring best practice is very important to Robinsons Brewery and they take pride in the levels of training and ongoing help and guidance they offer, and as Cellar Trainer, Paul is a pivotal part of this. ‘When a new tenant joins us we run a 3-day induction course which includes everything from cellar, bar and line management and all Health and Safety aspects including COSHH with BIIAB at its core’.

On an ongoing basis, Robinson’s tenants have a complete manual of everything covered in the induction, handy booklets and an online resource called MyPubHub, which has help and guidance across the board, and they are always on-hand on the phone. As well as all this they run unannounced audits to assess the quality of the serve in all their outlets and Paul offers 1:1 training called ‘Perfect Pour’, covering all aspects that make for high quality bar staff.

How CellarCraft serves the industry

Paul told us: ‘Robinsons believe that a high standard of training is key in running an establishment of quality. Different regionals take different approaches. Because of this CellarCraft is a valuable resource. The visual representations will be very popular with busy publicans and their staff. The content is accurate and reflects best practice within the industry. I sit on the committee for the National Brewers Technical Liaison Group and CellarCraft is exactly the kind of resource we can share to encourage best practice and the perfect serve across the country’.

And remember, as well as all the downloadable information and top tips articles, for particularly troublesome quandaries there is always the option to ‘Ask CellarCraft’