Part of the reason that the Salehurst Halt serves such wonderful pints of beer is that we have a ‘proper’ cellar. Keeping ales at the optimum temperature in the right environment helps give you that perfect pint. But another aspect of having such good beer is having a team that knows how to look after it.
At the end of February, Dave, our very own ‘beer king’ arranged a team training session for the front of house crew – and this included learning all about cellar management.
It was a pretty tight squeeze getting us all down there, and it was chilly… but we learned how to look after the products we pull through on the pumps, including how to effectively do a line clean. Now, ordinarily, Dave manages this himself – and does so week in and week out. But even he deserves some time off every now and again, so by teaching the rest of the team how to look after the beers, we know our ales will always be as expected, even if he does go off for a holiday every now and then.
The training continued above ground, in the slightly warmer, less confined bar. Again Dave lead the team through some training for serving our fabulous customers – this time it was about bringing out the delicious food that we offer.
Having already set up an obstacle course to represent customers and their dogs scattered around the bar, as is on a regular busy day at the Halt, we all got to try and carry as many plates and trays of ‘drinks’, all with ping-pong balls balancing on them, around the obstacles from the kitchen to table 10. This was timed, with points deducted for anything dropped. And congratulations to Lilly for her winning time with zero drops!
We are incredibly lucky to have such a fabulous team here, and a huge thank you to Dave for taking the time to come up with the training plan and for him making the whole session a fun and informative occasion.
