I just can’t work up enough invective to put this in the Pit. It’s minor in the overall scheme of things, but it bugs me:
When a restaurant or bar hires a new server, would it really kill them to spend an hour educating them about beer? Here are a few examples:
The difference between ale and lager is as fundamental as the difference between red and white wine. It seems most servers think “ale” is a synonym for “beer,” and when I ask what ales are available, I get answers like “Coors” (no, those are lagers). I’ve started asking for “dark ales” to avoid the problem, and now I get answers like “Heineken Dark” or “Dos Equis.” Those are also lagers.
I like porters and stouts, but a surprising number of bartenders have no idea what they are, even if they have them available! “You have any stouts?” “No.” “Anything dark?” “We have Guinness.” “That’s a stout.” “Really?” “Yeah, see on the tap handle where it says Guinness Extra Stout?” “Wow-never noticed that.” sigh
Teach the staff more than just the names of the breweries. A waiter the other day listed off the beers and one of the choices was “Sam Adams.” I asked which one and got a blank stare. Do you have the Boston Lager? The Boston Ale? The Double Bock? The White Ale? The Honey Porter? The Irish Red? Sam Adams makes over two dozen beers. Don’t you have any idea which one you’re serving?
Most of this problem goes away if restaurants and bars create a proper beer list. Note the word “proper.” If your beer list just says “Sierra Nevada,” it’s not a proper list. It’s like listing a winery on your wine list without stating whether you carry their Merlot or their Reissling.
OK, I was with you until this. An entirely proper list could be:
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Sierra Nevada Porter
Sierra Nevada Celebration
Sierra Nevada Stout
Sierra Nevada Wheat
Sierra Nevada Summerfest
Sierra Nevada Bigfoot
A list like that works for me!
And keep the list updated! Nothing worse than saying “I’ll have an XXXXXX” and hearing “Oh, we haven’t had that in months!” (If they even know what you are ordering.)
My beer loving sister-in-law once yelled at a Friday’s waitress for not knowing the difference between stout and porter. She could have been calmer about it. It’s not like we were at Rock Bottom or Gordon Biersch.
Still, I like lager about 10 times more than ale, and I usually have to either figure it out myself or go with something that I already know. Wines are usually listed by type then vintner, but with beer it’s brewery first, type if you’re lucky.
I once had a customer ask me what lagers we had available. I began the list by mentioning Budweiser, and the guy completely went nuts on me about how Budweiser “was absolutely NOT a lager!” I answered in the most friendly/ignorance-fighting tone I could muster that Budweiser was, indeed a “lager”, but he would hear none of that nonsense.
I finally concluded that he thought “lager” meant “dark,” and told him all the dark beers we offered.
The customer, quite satisfied with himself, chose Fat Tire…an ale. :rolleyes:
I’m with ya man (I’m assuming man?), and the only reason I think this shouldn’t be in the pit is because only 1% of society and 10% of beer drinkers even know what you’re talking about. Generally, my first question at an unfamiliar bar/restaurant is, “What are your porters and stouts?”
That’s why I like this place in New Brunswick NJ. An up to date beer list. 22 taps and cask beers, rotated often. Some of the beers are exclusively imported, can’t get them anywhere else in the country at least on tap. Bartenders that know their beer. And live Blues. Can’t beat it.
I used to go to a place called the Hopyard in Pleasanton, CA. They had about four taps that were always the same (Guinness being one of them), and then dozens of taps that rotated. If you joined their beer club, you got a card with a checkbox for each beer (by numbers). Then they had prizes you’d get after trying 50 different beers, and 100, and so on. There used to be a pizza place that did something similar. After you’d ordered 100 different beers, they’d etch your name on a glass mug and hang it behind the bar, so you could drink out of your own mug each time you visited.
Both of those places had bartenders that actually knew their stuff, and the lists were posted clearly. They were heaven for serious beer fans.
The Celebration Town Tavern in Celebration, FL has 99 beers (yes, there’s an actual LIST), and a staff that can tell you about any single one of them - and actually be correct, much to my glee.
Although, I was sad when they took the Sam Smith selections off the menu.
